The effects of explicit form-focused instruction on the acquisition of the present perfect by EFL chilean students

Abstract

This thesis examines the effects of focus-on forms instruction on the recognition and production of the English Present Perfect. A study was conducted that observed gains in a series of adapted tests measuring the grammatical judgment, level of production and acquisitional patterns of the English Present Perfect in the written performance of a group of intermediate EFL learners. Participants were 31 intermediate undergraduate Chilean students (Spanish L1) from the morning and evening courses of a teacher training program. The evening course was exposed to a focus-on-forms type of training and therefore considered as the experimental group. One set of judgments regarding the recognition of the proper use of the English Present Perfect and two sets of L2 writing tasks were collected for the study. Effects of the focus-on-forms instructions were then observed in the collected data along with the acquisitional pattern found after the intervention. Results of the study show modest but statistically significant gains in the recognition of the English Present Perfect and its different types of undergeneralizations in the experimental group. Less systematic gains were also observed in the written production of the English Present Perfect. Concerning the effects of focus-on-forms instruction on the pattern of acquisition no modifications were observed.Finally, results suggest that focus-on-forms instruction provides effective tools for the acquisition of the English Present Perfect. The study also contributes with a much needed description of the acquisitional path that Chilean Spanish learners of English as a foreign language develop in relation to the acquisition of the English Present Perfect.