THE EFFECT OF FOCUS-ON-FORM INSTRUCTION ON LEARNING SIMPLE PAST TENSE AND DEFINITE AND INDEFINITE ARTICLES AMONG IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS

This study explores the effect of Focus on Form (FonF) method of instruction on Iranian learners. It particularly focuses on teaching simple past tense (PT) and definite and indefinite articles (ARTs) as the linguistic targets to Iranian EFL learners. Studies on the effect of FonF instruction in L2 were extensively conducted and the results have shown positive empirical evidence for FonF instruction (N. Ellis, 1995; Spada, 1997; Norris and Ortega, 2000; and R. Ellis, 2002). To this end, 56 female EFL learners whose age ranged from 18 to 24 participated in this project and formed the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received the FonF instruction as the treatment. The tests used in this study were a diagnostic test, a pretest, a posttest, and an open-ended questionnaire. The data were subject to ANOVAs and the results indicated that the experimental group did significantly differently from the control group in the posttest. The conclusion drawn is that this approach was positively effective to teach English simple past tense and definite and indefinite articles to the learners of English as a foreign language.