（英语语言文学专业论文）论互动教学中的形式融入.pdf

iii 内内 容容 摘摘 要要 语法教学是语言教学中易引起争论的话题。就重视程度而言,也许研究者对语法 教学的重视甚过语言教师。语言研究者从整个语言角度出发,认识到语法作为语言系 统的主要成分之一,不可忽视。 再从语言习得角度来讲,流利度和准确度是衡量语言水 平的两个关键因素,偏离了哪一方都不行,因此,准确度获得了应有的地位。 然而,从具 体教学来讲,受教材、教学环境、教育政策,特别是考试政策的影响,具体的教学活动 往往缺乏相对稳定性。 有时语法特别受到重视,但只是形式方面,没有真正地触及语法 结构的功能意义,更没有触及到语法知识的内化效用。 有时语法完全被忽略,只注重意 义的交流。 近年来,一些理论和实践研究表明,在交际课堂中融入形式教学能够有效促进学 习者中介语系统的发展,确保习得的效果。以此为理念的新教学模式 focus on form 已 成为目前形式教学研究的主流。本文以近期国外的理论和研究成果为基础,介绍了 focus on form 产生的背景和定义,分析了它与传统形式教学的区别及存在的理据,着 重归纳了现有的 focus on form 的具体教学方法并讨论了不同方法的优势和缺陷;同时 还提出了 focus on form 研究中亟待解决的一些问题,指出了未来研究的方向。 本文在研究心理语言学关于语言的理解和产出及二语习得理论的基础上,特别是 受到了语言的理解和产出能力及提高语法意识概念及思想的启示，结合 schmidt(1990,1994,1997)等关于 noticing, awareness 以及记忆系统的研究,提出了把提 高学习者的学习意识落实到产出这一层面上的思想,并通过实际观察及实践,论证了 这一学习策略在语法的学习上的必要性及可行性。 以上阐述给我们带来启示是,输出对语言学习的促进作用需涉及如语法编码和监 察等的心理过程,说明以输出为基础的语言活动需要通过这些活动在大多程度上成功 地动用这些过程来评估,例如机械性的输出任务不能真正地动用输出机制,对二语习 得的作用就不可能显著。那么,我们在教学中需要考虑为学习者创造有意义的语言使 用语境,使他们获得恰当的语言形式与语言意义连接（l2 form meaning connections） 。 本篇讨论的输出的心理语言学机制,给我们很多关于理想的语言学习环境的启迪,今 后的研究目标是去识别、确定理想的 l2 外语学习环境,并通过输出诱发成功的 l2 外 语学习。 关键词：关键词：focus on form；注意假设；语言理解与输出；反馈 ；注意假设；语言理解与输出；反馈 iv abstract recent research has demonstrated the need for formal instruction for learners to attain high levels of accuracy. this has led to a reconsideration of grammar teaching, and its role in second language acquisition has become the focus of current investigation. much has been written, on both the theoretical and the empirical levels, about the idea of focus on form and the suggestion often made that some kind of form-focused activity needs to be incorporated into l2 communicative contexts. however, much less work has been done on how this aim can be pedagogically fostered. this thesis will first elaborate on the need to incorporate form-focused activities within an integrative approach to l2 teaching. it examines research on the different ways in which formal instruction can be integrated into communicative activities. pedagogical possibilities and strategies will then be suggested, and examples of tasks that may help to realize this goal in classroom contexts are provided. relevant empirical evidence on the effectiveness of such tasks will be presented and discussed. this thesis reviews language acquisition and cognitive psychology on the comprehension and production process in language use and language learning. in speech comprehension, the interactive and compensatory nature of the human comprehension system can both promote comprehension and hinder language development for second language learners, unless the learners are pushed to attend to form-meaning connections during input processing. the process of grammatical encoding during production and monitoring to check the matching of the communicative intention and the output enable language learners to access the possibilities and limitations of the interlanguage capability. the thesis concludes by proposing conditions under which focus on form instruction could effectively function in china. key words: focus on form; noticing hypothesis; comprehension and production process; feedback i 三峡大学学位论文原创性声明三峡大学学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下，独立进行研究工作 所取得的成果，除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含任何其他个人或集体已经 发表或撰写过的作品成果。 对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体均已在文中以明 确方式标明，本人完全意识到本声明的法律后果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名： 日 期： 1 1. introduction 1.1 motivation for the study in the field of foreign language teaching, there are mainly two trends concerning classroom instruction: grammar translation and functional/ meaning-focused instruction. these trends are based on the ideas that consider language from different angles, either as a set of rules and a linguistic system or as a tool for communication. the grammar translation method argues that language learning develops from formal rule-based knowledge, emphasizing rule practice and controlled learning as the effective pedagogical activities. on the other hand, the meaning-focused instruction advocates the communicative use of language, emphasizing meaningful and task-based activities. current classroom instruction is based on communicative language teaching, in which the great importance of meaning compared with form is considered crucial. communicative ability training has become a goal, and communicative practice has become part of classroom procedure. the main goal of oral english language teaching is to enable learners to use english effectively. yet, in the process of communicative practice, there exists the problem that the learners overall language proficiency improvement is being constantly neglected because emphasis seems to be “learning just for communication” (陶娜，2005). under the influence of this tradition, language competence and the relationship between language form and language function are not considered. it has been realized that mere exposure to language and practice with functional communication will not ensure proficiency in language learning. the emphasis on language production can certainly promote students motivation and their language use, but not language form. students errors become fossilized; the learners language level will not be improved when they achieve a certain level because of the lack of corrective feedback. although practice activities aimed at language production may help learners achieve greater control over structures they have already acquired, they may be less successful in enabling learners to acquire new linguistic features. some researchers (e.g. pica, 2005) have suggested that meaning-focused content in classrooms may not offer students sufficient opportunities to modify their output syntactically or to receive feedback on their grammatical accuracy. in recent years, theoretical perspectives on language teaching and learning have 2 changed. many researchers advocate a more form-focused approach to language teaching rather than a solely communicative approach. they argue that activities that focus solely on meaning are inadequate to develop an accurate knowledge of the language and some kind of form-focused activity needs to be incorporated into communicative classroom contexts (long, 1991; long the principal debate concerns how form should best be taught. in recent years, theoretical and empirical researches have suggested that the incorporation of form-focused instruction into communicative language instruction can accelerate the development of the interlanguage system and thereby facilitate language acquisition. this approach has developed as a reaction against the communicative approach which advocates the exclusive use of meaning-focused activities in language classrooms. long (1991, 1997, in norris, 2001) proposed focus on form instruction, and defined it as a method which overtly draws students attention to linguistic elements when they arise in a communicative environment and student-centered classroom. the focus on form approach to language teaching is very attractive as it provides a way of integrating fluency and accuracy. however, much less work has been published on how this aim can be pedagogically fostered. although research suggests that it is useful to include some kind of form-focused activity in communicative contexts, this suggestion may be of little use if teachers do not know how to carry it out. in this thesis, the author argues that in purposeful communication and meaning exchanges there is still a need for form instruction and practice. the problem is how to integrate focus on form with meaningful communication in classroom contexts. in order to further probe into the subject, this thesis reviews language acquisition and cognitive psychology on the comprehension and production process in language use and language learning and attempts to discuss how the fonf method works on learners comprehension and production level to help them to speak more accurately. 3 with this in mind, this article has a three-fold purpose. firstly, the lack of accuracy in oral production is a salient characteristic of english learning, despite learners good knowledge of english vocabulary and grammar. “how do the learners develop their linguistic knowledge in the fl classroom?” is the major concern of the author. therefore, questionnaires, interviews and a case study are carried out. error data and evidence are collected; both learners and instructors attitudes towards language form and formal mistakes are analyzed; major teaching methods and classroom activities, together with the students comprehension and production strategies toward language form, are investigated. by these means a general picture of language form learning emerges. secondly, the mental processes that the students engage in when using a language need to be explored. we need to ask the following questions: what kinds of grammatical information are stored in the speakers minds? what language production procedures do the students engage in when speaking? what are the factors influence that information comprehension and language production? answers to these questions provide the theoretical foundations for analyzing the reasons why l2 learners could not use the correct language form to express their intended meaning. a better understanding of the relationship between second language oral production and the cognitive psychological mechanisms underlying its development may contribute to the research in second language oral production development. thirdly, a qualitative case study was carried out to address the research question “how does the focus on form method work on learners comprehension and production processes?”. the results and implications drawn from the evaluation can give researchers and language teachers a better view of what students want and what they need, and the conclusion of the study can also be taken as possible guidance for improving language form teaching and learning in the language classroom. the ultimate goal of second language learning is to achieve fluency as well as accuracy. this article intends to provide a framework that is both theoretical and practical and could be adapted to teaching in the classroom. through certain kinds of form-focused instructions and practice activities, attention to form could be incorporated in the communicative classroom environment, and then the information processing ability of students could be improved. 4 1.3 overall structure of this thesis this thesis consists of six parts. at the very beginning, a general picture is drawn about the current situation in college english teaching, and a brief introduction is given about the aim and design of this thesis. chapter two discusses form-focused instruction, and different types of form-focused instruction are examined. a definition of focus on form is provided, along with a discussion of some of its major features. a comparison is made between focus on form and the other two terms, focus on meaning and focus on forms, in order to make clear the central aspects of focus on form instruction. the section also offers a brief review of some major studies in this area. lastly, major problems about focus on form instruction are discussed, such as what kind of form should be focused on, and under what conditions it could function effectively. chapter three reports a quantitative empirical investigation. data are collected by questionnaires, observations and interviews. in order to find out why the learners make those mistakes, the author investigates what the teaching methods of grammar instruction are and the effects of instruction on the learners comprehension and production strategies and interlanguage system. problems that exist in the comprehension and production process will be presented and discussed. modifications are made to the design of tasks and feedback is given in order to enhance the comprehension and production ability of the students. both teachers and learners attitudes towards focus on form are investigated. in chapter four a framework of the l2 acquisition process will be presented to gain a brief overview of the way learners develop their l2 knowledge in sla. the noticing function in language learning is examined, and we explore how the mental mechanisms work when processing information, which provides a way to draw learners attention to grammatical features. two questions are asked: (1) what psycholinguistic processes are utilized in input processing? (2) how is the resulting information organized and accessed by the learner? the discussion can help us to develop instructions and design activities according to the learners information processing system. chapter five presents a six-week case study aimed at finding out how the suggested model facilitates learning. three students are required to perform oral tasks using two chosen grammatical forms that are integrated into the communicative tasks, and their learning processes and results are recorded. several tests are given to them to test their 5 usefulness. in the conclusion, we shall summarize the principal findings and point out some limitations of the current study and offer some suggestions for further research. 6 2. current approaches to form-focused instruction researchers have used different terms to refer to instruction involving formal instruction, which may lead to confusion. therefore, it is better first to make clear the meanings of the terms used. the term form-focused instruction (ffi) used by ellis (2001:1-2) refers to “any planned or incidental instructional activity that is intended to induce language learners to pay attention to linguistic form.” this is what stern (1990, in ellis, 2001:2) called analytic strategy. ffi contrasts with meaning-focused instruction (mfi), which refers to the instruction that requires learners to attend to what they want to communicate (stern, in ellis, 2001). stern (1990, in ellis, 2001:2) refers to it as experimental strategy. widdowson (1998, in ellis, 2001) has criticized the distinction between form and meaning, because the term form does not just refer to linguistic form, but also to the meaning the form has realized in its use, e.g. the form of the past tense -ed means the action is completed in the past. in form-focused instruction, students should attend to the meaning realized by language form, while in the meaning-focused instruction, students should also use the form to express meaning. ellis (2001) argues that the essential difference between form-focused instruction and meaning-focused instruction lies in how language is viewed. he says that if the language is viewed as a tool of communication, learners take on the role of users; if the language is viewed as a goal of learning, learners are the students to learn the language points. 2.1 form-focused instruction form-focused instruction is always considered as a general term that includes two different kinds: focus on forms and focus on form. because of the problems presented by traditional structure-based grammar teaching, long (1991), proposes an approach which he terms “focus on form,” distinguishing it from the “focus on forms” approach in teaching grammar (long language points are presented to them gradually, and they do a great many exercises in order to memorize them, but they seldom pay attention to the communicative use of the language. in this approach, the l2 is treated as an object rather than as a tool for communication. focus on form overtly draws students 7 attention to linguistic elements when they arise in a communicative environment and student-centered classroom. in short, focus on form instruction is a type of instruction that, on the one hand, maintains the basic characteristics of communicative language teaching, while on the other hand, it draws students attention to l2 grammatical forms occasionally or overtly. long (1998) takes a more pedagogic view, suggesting that this approach is effective for teaching grammar since it is learner-centered and tuned to the learners interlanguage competence. longs terms have become widely used, and will be the ones used here. the following sections contain a detailed description of the features of focus on form and the distinctions between it and the other two terms. option 2 option 3 option 1 analytic analytic synthetic focus on meaning focus on form focus on forms natural approach tblt gt, alm, silent way, immersion content-based lt (?) tpr procedural syllabus etc. process syllabus (?) etc. structural syllabus etc. table1. options in language teaching (adapted from long, in long examples and models are provided for elaboration of the grammar rules; students tend to practice and repeat the models and memorize short dialogs; and they are asked to do some transformation exercises. explicit negative feedback is provided by the teacher in order to correct the errors they have made. the problem with focus on forms is that lessons tend to be rather dry, and it has little communicative use for the l2. there is no analysis to identify learners communicative needs. the behaviorist model is adopted in classroom practices and the language learning process is ignored. this discourages students and is inefficient. since focus on forms tends to produce boring lessons, students may lack motivation and attention in learning. 2.1.2 focus on meaning (fonm) unlike focus on forms, the starting point in focus on meaning is not the linguistic elements, but the learner and learning processes. by recognizing that the synthetic syllabi do not work very well, some researchers and teachers believe that second language learning is not intentional, but in