Spoken Grammar Features: Does the Way of Teaching Make a Difference?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of competitive and cooperative explicit and task-based instruction of spoken grammar features of heads, tails and ellipses on Iranian EFL learners’ awareness of these features. To this end, 90 female pre-intermediate EFL learners of Ghane Language Institute in Tehran were selected through convenience sampling. The participants were randomly assigned to four experimental groups, receiving explicit and task-based instructions in competitive and cooperative contexts. Prior to the treatment, a pretest was given to check the participants’ level of awareness of the spoken grammar features. After a 10-session instruction, a posttest was administered. The collected data were processed using the two-way ANCOVA procedure. The results indicated that competitive and cooperative contexts were equally effective on raising learners’ awareness of spoken grammar features. Moreover, there was a statistically significant interaction effect between type of instruction and the context of instruction. These findings have important theoretical and pedagogical implications.