Form‐Focused Instruction

Abstract

Form‐focused instruction (FFI) is defined as an L2) teaching approach in which learners' attention is drawn to language forms within primarily meaning/content‐based instruction. FFI includes explicit and implicit instruction and corrective feedback and can be provided in both planned and spontaneous ways. Considerable research has examined type of FFI (i.e. explicit and implicit), and the overall findings indicate benefits for both types on different language features (e.g., simple/complex) with greater benefits for explicit FFI. Less research has investigated the timing of FFI (i.e. isolated and integrated). One of the central questions motivating this work is whether isolated or integrated FFI may contribute to different types of L2 ability, as measured by learners' performance on different tasks (e.g., error correction vs. communicative tasks). The findings, range from equal benefits for both integrated and isolated FFI to greater benefits for one over the other with limited support for the hypothesis that they contribute to different types of L2 ability. This research includes studies that have focused exclusively on the provision of immediate (i.e., integrated) and delayed (i.e., isolated) corrective feedback. Continued research—formal and informal—carried out by both researchers and teachers should offer more insights into optimal ways of drawing learners' attention to form within meaning‐based approaches to L2 instruction.