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The effect of focus on form in the written work of adult learners of Arabic

journal contribution
posted on 2005-01-01, 00:00 authored by Hakeem Kasem
One of the key debates within SLA research circles concerns grammar
- whether and hov to include it in second language (L2) instruction. 'Noninterventionist' approaches to language leaching, which centre on focus on meaning (FonM) , have been found to be neither economical nor expedient in terms of use of learners' classtime (Long & Robinson, 1998). This paper is a study of the effects oj direct grammatical instruction within a communicative context (Focus on Form - FonF) on the accuracy rate of the use of noun-adjective agreement in the written work of adult learners of Arabic. Learning the systems oj noun/adjective agreement in Arabic presents problems for beginners since. unlike languages such as English. Arabic needs to be modified for gender, number. definiteness and case. Through teaching material and methods, first-year university English speaking students of Arabic were directly exposed to morpho-syntactic inflections relevant to noun-adjective agreement. In post-tests over an extended period. instructed students showed a higher accuracy rate of some forms than their uninstructed colleagues. suggesting focusing on form is beneficial to the Arabic learner and does not need to interrupt the communicative flow in the classroom (Ellis et al. 2001).

History

Journal

Languages and linguistics

Issue

15 & 16

Pagination

69 - 82

Publisher

Université Sidi Mohamed ben Abdellah

Location

Fās, al-Maghrib

ISSN

1114-0399

Language

eng

Notes

Journal title (English) Languages and linguistics ; Reproduced with the specific permission of the copyright owner.

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2005, Université Sidi Mohamed ben Abdellah

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