外语学习动机角度下的输入加工教学与传统教学的对比研究
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Research
As English has become an international language in the world, English leaning in China has been more and more important. Especially with the fast development of education, nowadays scholars and researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) primarily focus on how learner can acquire language effectively. As one of the most essential and complicated factor and individual differences among foreign language acquisition, motivation provides the initiate impetus to learning, which also driving force to maintain language learning process. Even in some cases, motivation determines the degree of efforts that learners make in second language learning. The more motivation they have, the more positive attitude they would adopt and the more efforts they would like to make in the target language learning. Research on language learning motivation in China still lies in its early stage. And because of the different learning environment, the research results cannot apply directly in SLA. Few researches conduct the study on instruction of SLA with the consideration of motivation perspective. For many years, traditional instruction is widely used among most English teachers in China, especially in language grammar teaching. Although there developed many effective ways for teaching listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, it still the traditional instruction when it refers to grammar teaching. In general, the traditional instruction focused on control learners’ output during the language learning acquisition. During the process, learners are given an explanation about the grammatical rules, vocabulary and sentence structure to master the declarative knowledge, which is the foundation of the further study. It firstly need learners’ attention on the correct language structure form without understand its meaning whereby mechanical drills.
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1.2 Significance of the Study
As is known to all, there are three main aspects in learning a language: pronunciation, vocabulary and the grammar. Especially, grammar rules learning are one of the most essential aspects in second language acquisition. The subjunctive mood (SM) is one of the special forms of the finite verb in English grammar. It shares a certain part in the examinations which deserves a necessary and careful attention. However, the experiment shows that it’s also the most confused grammar format to the students when being tested. Therefore, the importance of learning subjunctive mood not only lies in the improvement in examination, but also in acquisition of English language itself. In Chinese English learning classroom, the most widely used method in grammar teaching is explicit information guiding with mechanical output practice. Based on the previous research, the present research possesses the following characteristics: In theory, this research introduces the traditional instruction which is output-oriented and input processing instruction under perspective of foreign language motivation. The comparative study is conducted by the designed experiment. Taken the previous studies’ limitation into consideration, this research attempts to shed some lights on the further theoretical study of SLA. In practice, this research aims at providing some beneficial suggestions on English grammar teaching in Chinese English teaching classroom. With the consideration of Chinese unique English learning context, the research is expected to improve grammar teaching instruction. In addition, the research calls some attentions on improving grammar teaching. The target language item is English subjunctive mood. The subjunctive mood (SM) is one of the special forms of the finite verb in English grammar and also the most confused grammar format to the students when being tested. In China, grammar teaching is still limited in using traditional teacher-centered instruction. This research aims at provide some applications on English grammar teaching in the front line. In a word, the research compares the differences between the Input Processing Instruction and Traditional Instruction under foreign language learning perspective. It aims at enrich English grammar teaching theory and provides theoretical suggestions for SLA .
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Foreign Language Learning Motivation
As one of the most essential and complicated factors and individual differences among foreign language acquisition, motivation provides the initiate impetus to learning, which also driving force to maintain language learning process. Over these years, many researchers and educators have done a lot of studies both at home and abroad. Over the past thirty-five years, the most significant motivation study has been implemented in Canada by Gardner and Lambert at Mc Gill University. Their studies carried out in the framework of social psychology, whose emphasis lies in social attitudes, learners’ values, and the motivation of learner’s besides of learner factors and the learning outcome. Because of the inherent complexity of motivation, there are no consensuses has been made on the meaning in definition, which also put forward a numerous variety of theories and approaches. Motivation is a term used to define a certain kind of internal or external driving force in human or subhuman beings. Gardner (1981) regards motivation as a portion of internal processes in the field of psychology, which spurs us on to satisfy some need. In the early stage, some psychologists consider that human mind is composed of knowing feeling (emotion), (cognition), and willing (motivation); while others take motivation as drives, energy and instincts. As to Mc Donough (2009), the concept of drive dominate the research of motivation in a long period, which leads to some psychologists regard motivation as energy directed toward a given goal. However, the effect of any knowledge for human beings is dependent on perceptions and values instead of themechanistic reactions. Therefore the psychologists switched their focus to the level of aspiration in the late 1930s and the 1940s. It became apparently that motivation has a straight impact on learning and achievement not only involves a satisfaction of human drive, when motivation research shifted from psychology to education.
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2.2 Theoretical and Empirical Studies in Processing Instruction
As is known to all, firstly there must be some language resources available taken by learners as input so as to acquire another language. Otherwise, the SLA will not take place without input. According to Rod Ellis (1985), input was defined as the language which was conveyed to the language learner, no matter by the native speaker or by another language learner. Both the spoken form and the written form were components of the language exposed to the learner, and used as the language resources to determine target language rules. Not until Stephen Krashen (1981, 1982 and 1985a) came up with the concept of “Input Hypothesis”, the essential role of input in SLA has been noticed. Meanwhile, he is the first one who proposed two separate methods to internalize the target language. The first method is called “acquisition”, which construct the system of the target language in an intuitively and subconsciously process. And this acquisition only occurs in the natural communication with the focus on meaning in a subconsciously way. While the second method pays attention to the “learning” process in a conscious way. In this method, the learner consciously studies the formal characteristics and the rules of the target language. After attend to forms and rules, the learner can gradually aware of their processing. However, these two methods are mutually exclusive to each other. By no means can learning process change into acquisition process. The comprehensible utterances product in natural communication came up with major resource offered by the acquired knowledge. While the learned knowledge only used in the situation that acquired language has modified the utterances.
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Chapter Three Research Methodology ......... 31
3.1 Research Questions ........ 31
3.2 Language Item ...... 31
3.3 Subjects of the research .......... 33
3.4 Research Instruments ..... 33
3.5 Teaching Intervention .... 34
3.6 Research Procedure ........ 36
3.7 Data collection and analysis.... 37
Chapter Four Results Analysis .... 38
4.1 Analysis of the Questionnaire .......... 38
4.2 Analysis of the Pretest .... 39
4.2.1 Descriptive of pretest .... 39
4.2.2 Descriptive of interpretation task in pretest ...... 40
4.2.3 Descriptive of production task in pretest .......... 42
4.3 Analysis of the Post-test .......... 43
4.4 Comparisons under Perspective of Motivation Intensity Types ............ 51
4.4.1 The relationship between motivation intensity type and tasks .... 52
4.4.2 Test of within-subjects effects on motivation intensity types ...... 52
Chapter Five Results Discussion ......... 55
5.1 Discussion of the Pretest ......... 55
5.2 Discussion of the Post-test ...... 57
5.3 Discussion of the Comparison ......... 60
Chapter Five Results Discussion
5.1 Discussion of the Pretest
The pretest was administrated to the subjects before the experiment to check their performance on the target grammar structure. To eliminate other factors that may affect the result, the questionnaire and the instructions are conducted in accordance with the requirement. The mean of the total subjects in the pretest is 5.91, which is far less than the full score 20. The low score indicates that the subjects fall short of a good command of the target linguistic structure. There is much room to improve on the English subjunctive mood. Based on this situation, there are two factors may result in the low score in the pretest. One factor is time interval. Although subjunctive mood has been learned since junior middle school, it is still the most confusing and difficult grammar format to the students. Some students fall short of a good command of it even at the first time learning. With time going, they may gradually forget some aspects of grammar knowledge, which may finally affects the scores of in the pretest. Another influencing factor is the characteristic of subjunctive mood itself. Subjunctive mood is always been considered as the most confusing and difficult linguistic format in English grammar, not only to the learners but also to many teachers and researchers. The confusing feature of the linguistic structure may also influence the getting of scores. However, the result did not reveal which one or two factors influencing it clearly. In review of this situation, it is pressing and necessary to call on a better study on subjunctive mood. Better instruction on English grammar teaching need to be proved and applied to promote foreign language acquisition.
Conclusion
The present research is conducted to compare the effects of input processing instruction and traditional instruction on learning subjunctive mood under foreign language learning motivation. The results derive from the questionnaire, pretest and the post-test. The major findings of this research can be generalized as follows: (1) The input processing instruction outperformed the traditional instruction in comprehension the subjunctive mood, while the traditional instruction works more effective than input processing instruction on the production stage. Both the two instructions can facilitate the acquisition of subjunctive mood, although they have different advantages on learning stage. On the whole, input processing instruction is more effective than traditional instruction. (2) Generally speaking, the promotion effects of both the two instructions affect significantly on high motivation learners. While input processing instruction effects middle motivation intensity type learners most significantly. The results of the present research keep consistence with the previous researches and provides more evidence on the advantage of input processing instruction in second language acquisition. The comprehensible input contributes to the connection between meaning and form and develops inter-language system, which finally promote second language acquisition. The nature of target language structure might influence the efficacy of instruction. Therefore, it can infer that the different results of previous researchers list in Chapter two might attribute to the different language feature. In a word, the research sheds some light on second language acquisition and provides some implications on English grammar teaching in the front line.
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The reference (omitted)
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