Spoken grammar features instruction and raising learners' awareness

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of explicit instruction of four main spoken grammar features of heads, tails, progressive past tense and ellipsis on raising EFL learners' awareness of these features in pre- intermediate level. Although these features constitute main part of native speaker spoken grammar, they have been extensively, if not totally, ignored in ELT textbooks. Therefore, the grammar types EFL learners confront in their course books is not the ones seen in native speaker speech but rather the ones mostly observed in their written language. The result is, after some years of learning speaking, learners come to write well than to speak well! Therefore, the researcher decided to do an empirical study to find out whether by explicitly instructing learners on the features taken out of spoken corpora, their awareness could be raised or not.The 23 participants were from Iran, Shahriar at pre- intermediate level aged 15-23.The paired samples t- test conducted indicated the instruction has been highly successful in raising learners' awareness of the commonly ignored features.

Autorentext

Mona Mirzaei, MA: Studied English language Teaching at Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch. English Teacher at an English Institute, Tehran. Area of Interest: Foreign Languages Teachinhg