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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS vi
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF FIGURES viii
INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Significance of the study 2
3. Aims and scope of the study 3
4. Research methods 4
5. Organization of the study Error! Bookmark not defined.
DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1. Grammar 5
1.1.1. Definition of grammar 5
1.1.2. Kinds of grammar 5
1.1.3. Effect of grammar instruction on students‟ grammar mastery 6
1.2. Focus-on-form instruction (FFI) 9
1.2.1. Focus-on-form, focus on forms and focus on meaning 9
1.2.2. Definition of Focus-on-form instruction 10
1.2.3. Kinds of focus-on-form 12
1.2.4. Focus-on-form teaching techniques 16
1.2.5. Focus-on-form previous research 21
1.3. Summary 23
CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 24
2.1. The experimental setting 24

APPENDIX 2: POSTTEST II
APPENDIX 3: PHIẾU KHẢO SÁT III
APPENDIX 4: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE V
APPENDIX 5: CÂU HỎI PHỎNG VẤN VII
APPENDIX 6: INTERVIEW VIII
APPENDIX 7: STUDENTS’ RAW SCORES IN THE PRETEST - POSTTEST IX

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LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS
CO Control group
CR Consciousness raising task
EFL English as a Foreign Language
EA Error analysis task
EX Experimental group
FFI Focus-on-form instruction
GT Tense gap-fill task
IELTS International English Language Testing System
L1 Native Language
L2 Second Language; Foreign Language
MCR Multiple-choice recognition task
M Mean (average score)
N Number
P p-value, probability value
PC Present continuous tense
PS Present simple tense
S Student
SD Standard deviation
SEM Standard error of means
t t-value

tests 65
Table 14: Students‟ grammar improvement basing on pass/fail criteria 67 viii

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Students‟ response to previous grammar learning experience 54
Figure 2: Students‟ final target of learning English 55
Figure 3: Students‟ reasons for grammar learning 56
Figure 4: Students‟ attitude to the importance of grammar learning 57
Figure 5: Students‟ difficulties in grammar learning 58
Figure 6: Factors developing students‟ grammar 59
Figure 7: Experimental group‟s development means on three subtasks from pre- to post
tests 66
Figure 8: Students‟ attitude to grammar framework 68
Figure 9: Students‟ attitude to communication in FFI activities 69
Figure 10: Students‟ attitude to deducing rules through communication 70
Figure 11: Students‟ preferred practice kind 71
Figure 12: Students‟ difficulties in drawing out rules with teacher‟s assistance 73
Figure 13: Students‟ frequency of taking part in FFI 74

assessing students because it is a major component in any tests - about ninety percent of
criteria. Additionally, students also perceive grammar as the first element to master.
However, learning grammar well seems to be threatening with most students. Unlike
specialized students of high motivation and hard work, non-major ones feel bored with
learning by heart so many complicated and boring rules and structures mechanically but
not meaningfully and communicatively. Additionally, a deductive approach to grammar
method commonly applied at UNETI is not interesting, thus learners feel bored. In
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teaching grammar, the teacher shows the rules directly, thus students do not understand the
use in sentence or context. Moreover, the students are usually confused of rules and the
uses of tenses. Accordingly, they get bored, frightened and even ignore learning grammar.
As a result, a lot of students have low scores on English caused by the failure in mastering
grammar.
To improve students‟ English, I have experimented many ways to deal with this problem.
Finally, I have found focus on form instruction as the most appropriate solution to this
problem at UNETI. Beneficially, characteristics of focus on form both help students to
achieve their goals of grammar and enable them to use it in communication. To make use
of communicative grammar teaching techniques with purpose of helping students to be
interested and inspired to learn grammar, I have decided to conduct a study on:
“Improving the first year students’ grammar through focus-on-form instruction at
University of Economic and Technical Industries”
2. Significance of the study
In the context of English learning and teaching at UNETI also exists a problematic gap
between communication –based course book and grammar- based examinations. The
completion of the research will not only solve the problems for classroom practitioners but
also benefit students, administrators as well as researchers working on related fields.
Besides, the research can reveal much useful information about the actual situation.
Additionally, together with the tendency of the world the university tries to improve
students‟ ability to meet the requirement for TOEIC (Test of English for International

patterns to complete mechanical grammatical exercises in UNETI final exams well.
Grammar here does not mean communicative grammar competence which helps students
to use grammar in real life situations.
Among many grammar points, the research pays attention to the verb tenses, especially
present simple and present continuous raised in the course book “New Headway Pre-
Intermediate” by Liz and John Soars, Oxford University Press. It is because present simple
and present continuous tenses are rather common but confusing for starters like the
freshman, which is also the reason to choose these two verb tenses to be target structure.

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4. Research methods
The study uses experimental method as the research method to test the causal relationship
between focus-on-form instruction and students‟ improved grammatical competence. The
research aims at checking the hypothesis whether the independent variable “focus-on-form
instruction” has any effect on the dependent variable “students‟ grammatical competence”.
The experimental study uses both quantitative data through pre-and post tests together
with questionnaire and qualitative data from structured and semi-structured interview.
5. Organization of the study
The study is divided into three main parts with three development chapters as follows:
The first part is Introduction which provides the background information including
rationale, significance, aims, scope, research method, and organization of the study.
The second part is Development, which is the main part of the study, consists of three key
chapters including Literature Review, Research Methodology and Results with
Discussion.
The first chapter “Literature Review” reviews literature related to the study including
grammar notion with classification, focus-on-form instruction notion, activities, teaching
techniques and previous research which would hopefully provide the readers with a
detailed background to the research.
The second chapter “Research Methodology” describes the research method, the research

suffers”. This is also the definition used in my study. In short, grammar is the study of the
structure and features of a language. Grammar usually consists of rules and standards that
are to be followed to produce acceptable writing and speaking.
1.1.2. Kinds of grammar
Like “grammar”, kinds of grammar are classified according to various criteria. Jacob, R.A
distinguishes three types of grammar: mental grammar, descriptive grammar and
prescriptive grammar. In Encarta Encyclopedia, grammar is considered in terms of five
approaches: prescriptive, historical, comparative, functional and descriptive. Despite these
ways of classification‟s difference, they all share the two same types: descriptive
grammar and prescriptive grammar.
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Both are concerned with rules but in different ways. A prescriptive approach to grammar
presents authoritative norms about the structure of a language and determines language use
correct or incorrect, good or bad according to those sets of rules. It condemns all styles or
dialects of a language except the standard or classical type. These rules were further
subdivided by Vavra (1996) into rules and syntax. Usage includes rule about concepts like
rhetorical questions and slang words. Syntax encompasses rules of sentence structure and
its component parts. Most of the “rules” people learn in grade school are of this kind.
Descriptive grammar tries to look at how language is actually used by native speakers
and from that draws the rule of language use. The latter is usually bound to a particular
speech community and attempts to provide rules for actual language use which is
considered grammatically correct within that community.
From a pedagogical point of view, it is not surprising that prescriptive remains common as
a huge majority of ELT teachers are non-native speakers, who are by no means in constant
contact with actual target language use. A prescriptive grammar is then a reliable resource
to draw on.
It does not mean that descriptive grammar has no place in grammar teaching. With the
prevalent teaching and learning a language for communicative purposes, learners are
encouraged to be exposed to authentic language – the language used in real English –

 The learner‟s emotional state can act as a filter that impedes or blocks input
necessary to acquisition (the affective filter hypothesis).
In the Natural Approach, the teacher is expected to be the provider of comprehensible input
in the target language, emphasizes comprehensible and meaningful practice activities
rather than production of grammatically perfect utterances and sentences.
Thus, now formal instruction in grammar is not needed in first language, nor is in second
language acquisition (ibid.). Also, Prabhu succeeded, in some degree, in showing that
“learners can acquire an L2 grammar naturalistically” by attending classroom “meaning-
focused tasks” (1987, cited in Ellis, 1992, p.232).
1.1.3.2. Positive effect of grammar instruction on grammar mastery
However, in recent years, some other researchers and methodologists hold new
perspectives towards grammar instruction. They have argued, theoretically and
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empirically, that “grammar teaching does aid L2 acquisition” (Ellis, 1992. p.232). As early
as in 1988, Long thinks that formal grammar teaching aids learners to acquire L2 more
rapidly and get higher achievement (cited in Ellis, 1999a: 3). Celce-Murcia also concludes
that “some focus on form may well be necessary for many learners to achieve accuracy as
well as fluency” while “grammarless approach, …, can lead to the development of a
broken, ungrammatical pidginized form of the target language beyond which students
rarely progress” (1991). For this view, Nassaji & Fotos (2004) summarized four reasons:
Firstly, some researchers, such as Schimidt (1990, 2001), proved that “noticing” is one of
the necessities in language learning, compared with the theory that language is not learned
consciously, but acquired unconsciously.
Secondly, some methodologists, such as Pienemann (1984), have found that though the
sequence of acquisition in grammar cannot be changed, grammar instruction can accelerate
the process of learning some structures.
Thirdly, due to the fact that communicative language teaching has not produced ideal
outcomes in its practice, which lays emphasis on the meaningful communication whereas
ignores the structural forms of language completely, Swain (1985) and his colleagues

different forms in the texts, the students have no chance to practice speaking and listening.
The problem of focus-on-forms is to lay emphasis on language structures than students‟
comprehensive abilities of using foreign language. Consequently, students become almost
“structurally competent but communicatively incompetent”
Secondly, focus on meaning is a student-centered teaching which draws students‟
attention to meaning. Focus on meaning based on the notion of communicative
competence asserts that the primary objective of a second or a foreign language program
must provide language learners with the information practice and much of the experience
needed to meet the communication needs in the second or foreign language. Focus on
meaning views language as a tool for communication, insists that inter-action speaking in
classrooms be instances of real communication and ensures that students have sufficient
exposure to the target language. In brief, focus on meaning is an effective way to improve
students‟ fluency while neglecting the grammatical accuracy. However, focus on meaning
stresses the need to foster communicative competence before the mastery of accurate
language forms, which makes students ignore grammatical errors, which can be
“fossilizing” errors. These fossilized errors have become ingrained language habits after
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prolonged usage are extremely difficult to eliminate. Hence, it is impossible for language
learners to achieve high level of accuracy or native-like proficiency if they follow only
focus on meaning instruction.
Finally, focus on form is a bridge over focus on forms and focus on meaning. In other
words, it is the mixture of focus on forms and focus on meaning. Ellis indicates that:
“focus on form entails a focus on meaning with attention to form arising out of the
communicative activity”. Thus the use of focus on form instruction in the classroom allows
the teacher to instruct students to both accuracy and fluency. Additionally, it emphasizes
the accuracy of language forms in communicative classrooms.
The crucial difference is that focus-on-form instruction intends to draw the learners‟
attention to specific language forms within naturalistic communicative contexts in the
process of linking form and meaning.

understand the meaning or function of the new form when the student is attending to the
input.
Long‟s definition above identifies two essential characteristics of focus-on-form: (1)
attention to form occurs in lessons where the overriding focus is on meaning or
communication, and (2) attention to form arises incidentally in response to communicative
need. The advantage of this orientation is “the learners‟ attention is drawn precisely to a
linguistic feature as necessitated by a communicative demand” (Doughty and William,
1998). From this definition, it can be seen a link between communication fluency and
grammar accuracy. Hence, through this orientation, students can get grammatical accuracy
through effective communication, which is especially useful for non-English major
students at UNETI taking English communicative course book to overcome grammar
based exams.
Later, Ellis (2001) considers “focus-on-form instruction” as “any incidental or planned
instructional activities that induce language learners to pay attention to linguistic forms”
(p.1-2). It means that this attention to form should take place within a meaningful,
communicative context, making it an extension of communicative language teaching not a
departure from it. From two adjectives in Ellis‟s definition “planned” and “incidental”, it
proves that Ellis agrees with Long that the incidental attention to form is entailed when
overriding focus is on meaning. Creatively, Ellis added the second kind of this instruction
“planned attention to form” to the definition of focus-on-form instruction.
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Commonly, the term “form” has been used to exclusively refer to grammar, but this is not
really what is meant by form. As Ellis (2001) argues, the term “form” in focus on form
instruction “is intended to include phonological, lexical, grammatical, and pragmalinguistic
aspects of a language”. With a view of improving students‟ grammar, the term “form”
refers mainly to both grammar and meaning. In other words, the term focus on form has
always been used to refer not just to form but also to the meaning that a form realizes.
All in all, among the definitions of focus on form instruction, my thesis gets the notion by
Ellis (2001) as the theoretical background of my study. It is because the definition has been

specific target feature in the context of performing a communicative task. However, in
contrast to communicative tasks in general, focused communicative tasks intended to result
in learners‟ employing some features that has been specifically targeted. The primary focus
is on the meaning of the form.
The second kind of this instruction is incidental focus-on-form instruction. Contrary to
planned FFI, in incidental FFI the linguistic items arise spontaneously in the course of
meaning-focused activities. The option relates to two kinds of incidental focus on form:
preemptive and reactive. Both kinds of incidental FFI can arise either because there is a
problem of communication (the interactants have not understood each other) or because
there is a problem of form (the interactants have understood each other but nevertheless
wish to focus on some form that has arisen in the course of communicative activity).
Reactive FFI occurs when a learner has said something erroneous and the teacher or
another learner reacts to this error by correcting him. Thus this kind of focus on form is a
good source of supplying learners with negative feedback or evidence.
Like reactive focus on form, pre-emptive focus on form is problem oriented. However, the
nature of the problem that is addressed is somewhat different. Whereas reactive FFI
involves negotiation and is triggered by something problematic that an interactant has said
or written. Pre-emptive FFI involves the teacher or learner initiating attention to form even
though no actual problem in production has arisen. To put it another way, pre-emptive FFI
is an attempt by the teacher or a learner to initiate explicit attention to a linguistic form to
prevent the occurrence of an erroneous form. William(1999) looked at the ways in which
learners initiate attention to form in learner-learner interactions, reporting that this occurred
most frequently when learners requested assistance from the teacher. A very clear example
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of pre-emptive FFI occurs when teachers or learners ask questions: “How do you spell…”
or “How do you pronounce …” to preempt probable errors.
In brief, reactive focus on form addresses errors which have emerged in the context of
meaningful communication. Preemptive focus on form, on the contrary, addresses
problems which are predicted to occur and thus block communication.

requests, as stated by Lyster (1998), require learners to clarify what they said by the uses of
phrases and sentences like “Excuse me?, Beg your pardon?.”. Lin Giong also claimed that
clarification request calls for teachers to use strategies as “Pardon?”, “I‟m sorry?” for
clarification when the learner fails to comprehend due to the phonological problems in
turn-taking. This strategy also aims at pointing out the wrong expressions of the learner to
enable the latter to clarify his incorrect expression by repetition, explanation, addition,
expansion and so on.
For example: S: can, can I made a cake with … for my mother on her birth…day
T: pardon?
Experimental type studies of clarification requests involving type 2 FFI (Ellis &
Takashima, 1999; Noboyoshi &Ellis, 1993) have also provided evidence of long term
effects on acquisition.
Repetitions appear when the learners‟ errors highlighted by intonation including the use of
raising tone, repetition of the incorrect part of the learners utterance to attract his attention.
For example: S: the … the foreigners?
T: the foreigners?
Explicit negative feedback, as indicated by Long and Robinson, is when the learner is
told directly what the error is or is given metalingual information relating to the correct
form). “Explicit” in this notion means direct, fully expressed, defined or formulated.
Explicit feedback draws students‟ attention to the error directly. Accordingly, the explicit
feedback is dis-preferred in all types of focus-on-form instruction. This direct feedback is
clearly more obtrusive than indirect feedback. However, nowadays, teachers are advised to
view errors positively, which reflects a sociolinguistic need on the part of teachers to
protect the face of their students.
Lyster and Ranta (1997) identify a number of explicit options. “Explicit correction”
occurs when a teacher clearly indicates that the learner has said something wrong and
provides the correct form. “Metalinguistic feedback” consists of “comments, information
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or questions related to the well-formedness of the students‟ utterance” (p.47). Teachers aim


The task-essential language technique includes activities that elicit specific linguistic
features. For example, students compared 2 cities. Pairs of students told each other about
features of familiar cities and record the information on task sheets. They were then
instructed to write sentences comparing the cities according to the features they had
described. Students were not explicitly taught comparative forms at any point during the
task, but they had to use comparative forms to complete it. Afterwards, their instructor
taught a lesson on comparatives and students rewrote incorrect sentences, did more
production exercises and read stories that contained frequent instances of the comparative
form.
Explicit techniques include consciousness-raising task, focused communicative task,
input processing
In consciousness raising tasks (CR tasks), learners are encouraged to determine grammar
rules from evidence presented but not necessarily encouraged their production right away.
To put it in another way, consciousness raising task involves drawing learners‟ attention to
formal properties of the target language, generally through inductive means whilst
retaining the option of some deductive explanation. The desired outcome of a CR task is an
awareness of how a language feature or features work (Ellis, 2003). Ellis justifies CR
activities as tasks on the grounds that they require learners to talk meaningfully about a
language point using their own linguistic resources.
The focused communicative task (Ellis, 2001, p21) is designed to bring about the
production of a target form in the context of performing a communicative task. The task is
designed in such a way that the target feature is essential to the performance of the task.
For example, a task may require one student to give another student detailed instructions to
make a birthday cake. The first student will likely feel a need to use adverbs such as first,
now, then and next to talk the second student through the sequential steps of the task.
Input processing helps learners to recognize and understand grammatical forms through
clear examples and explanations.
Interaction enhancement includes interactive problem-solving tasks guiding learners to
use target forms in realistic discourse.

Learner: We talked about the problem.
Teacher: Good. Argue and result.
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Learner: We argued about the result.
Teacher: Good. Discuss and advantages.
Learner: We discussed about the advantages.
Teacher: No. With discuss we do not use about.
In the example above, the grammar rule “to verb about something” is introduced by
making sentences following model examples. However, the student is corrected and
thereby is made aware of the exception to the grammatical rule. Celce- Murcia (2007)
suggests that, instead of creating grammar correction exercises using decontextualized
sentences from learners‟ writing, teachers should create short texts that include common
error types made by students in their writing. Students can work together to edit the more
authentic texts, which helps them learn to correct their own work more successfully.
Larsen-Freeman (2003) discusses and gives examples of the focus on form production
techniques. Collaborative dialogues (p. 94-95) are conversations in which students work
together to discuss and use a new form, constructing a sentence together.
Another technique, prolepsis (p. 95-96), is an instructional conversation that takes place
between a teacher and a student. The teacher coaches the student through the process of
writing or saying something in English, perhaps incorporating the use of a new form. In the
following example of a proleptic conversation, a teacher (T) talks with a student (S) at a
low intermediate level who is writing a description of an important event in her past.
(S writes “I got score three.”)
T: Oh, you were sad. And then?
S: I cry.
T: I see. Why don‟t you write it down?
S: I can say it, but I don‟t write.
T: Just try it. Write what you know.
(S writes “I cry.”)

Task-essential
language X
Input
enhancement X
Negotiation X
Recast X
Output
enhancement X
Interaction
enhancement X
Input processing X
Dictogloss X
CR tasks X
Garden path X

Doughty & Williams (1998)