THE COMPARATIVE EFFECT OF PREEMPTIVE AND REACTIVE FOCUS ON FORM ON EFL LEARNERS’ ESSAY WRITING

This study was an attempt to investigate the comparative effects of preemptive and reactive focus on form on EFL learners’ essay writing. For this purpose, 60 learners of a total number of 90 intermediate learners studying at Pishgamane Academic Language School in Tehran, Iran were chosen based on their performance on a piloted PET. The 60 learners thus were divided into two groups and each of the groups were taught writing through one of the two forms of focus on form, namely, preemptive and reactive. At the end of the study, the participants in both groups were given a writing posttest. The design of this study was quasi-experimental and posttest only and ANCOVA was used to test the null hypothesis. The results of the study showed significant difference between the effect of the two methods with reactive group outperforming the preemptive group in writing. The finding of this study has implications for EFL teachers, teacher educators, and material developers. For example, the findings of this research are useful for teacher trainers to incorporate appropriate and practical techniques for the instruction of reactive focus on form. teachers should be trained in an appropriate way. They should be trained in terms of the ways through which they can give feedback; how to react to the students’ error, how to recast, how to write marginal comments, but at the same time not to disappoint them from learning.