The Influence of Form-Focused Instruction on the L2 Chinese Oral Production of Korean Native Speakers

Abstract

Form-focused instruction (FFI) can help second language (L2) learners notice the forms of language, which is conducive to the acquisition of linguistic forms. Two types of FFIs had been proposed, including focus-on-formS (FonFs) and focus-on-form (FonF). Previously, studies on FFI in L2 classroom teaching have focused mainly on the influence of two types of FFIs on the L2 acquisition of grammar and vocabulary. The influence of FonFs and FonF on L2 oral production, however, has been addressed less often. The advantages and disadvantages of different teaching methods in FonFs and FonF have not been well investigated. On the basis of Schmidt’s noticing hypothesis, VanPatten’s input processing hypothesis, and Long’s interactive hypothesis, we investigated the effects of teaching goals, teaching steps, and interactive activities in FonFs and FonF on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of 32 native Korean speakers’ L2 Chinese oral production. We found that FFI significantly improved the performance of L2 Chinese oral production, although different FFIs had different effects on complexity, accuracy, and fluency. FonF and FonFs could improve both complexity and accuracy, whereas FonF also significantly improved fluency, which was not observed in FonFs. Furthermore, we found that the level of L2 proficiency could modulate the interaction between instruction methods and learning outcomes. For low-proficiency learners, FonF was more helpful for the improvement of fluency. For high-proficiency learners, FonFs was more helpful for the improvement of accuracy. These results demonstrated that teachers should pay attention to the interaction between specific teaching conditions with different L2 proficiency and learning outcomes when implementing FFI. The findings of this study have important implications for the design of procedures and interactive activities of L2 spoken Chinese teaching.

Representation and reconstruction of Hispanic culture in localized Spanish textbooks in China: A multimodal discourse perspective

“…To our knowledge, the current paper is the first systematic study of CSFL textbooks to examine their cultural representation and reconstruction. Regarding the first research question in the study, our results are mainly supportive of the general consensus, as well as offering some new findings: (1) In contrast to a common perception that China's foreign language education is not communicative enough and is traditionally form-focused (Chen & Li, 2022), we found that current CSFL textbooks generally include rich Hispanic cultural content. In particular, small "c" cultural products were emphasized over big "C" aspects.…”

Teaching and Learning Chinese as a Foreign or Second Language: The Educational Psychology Perspective

“…In summary, no matter what kind of instruction conditions were used for the learners, the learning effects for lexical forms were maintained better than the syntactic forms, and the learning effects for syntactic complexity were the worst. The explanation for this is that syntactic abilities, such as sentence structure organization, cohesive construction, and semantic integration were more difficult to acquire because of their weak explicitness (Ahmadian and Tavakoli, 2011;Chen and Li, 2016;Kang et al, 2019), and more cognitive efforts were needed to increase the number of AS-unit clauses. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the relationship between learners' attention to syntactic complexity and oral production.…”

“…We used analysis of speech units (AS-units) to calculate complexity and accuracy of oral production (Foster et al, 2000, p. 365). Division into AS-units was achieved based on the characteristics of Chinese syntactic structure, referring to the three principles constructed by Chen and Li (2016). According to the first principle, a single sentence with strong independence is regarded as one AS-unit.…”

Instruction of Spanish Direct and Indirect Object Pronouns through Task-Supported Videoconferencing Instruction

“…Thus, some researchers now recognize the necessity of explicit FonFs for advanced language learners and claim that grammar instruction is essential if learners are to achieve their educational and professional goals (Celce-Murcia, 1991;Schmidt, 1994;Shaw & Liu, 1998). Chen and Li (2022) investigated the effects of FonFs and FonF on L2 Chinese oral production. The results of their study showed that, for high-proficiency learners, it is not sufficient to pay attention only to meaning (FonF); the linguistic forms should also be given continuous attention (FonFs).…”