The effects of processing instruction on the learning of past simple of vietnamese young learners ma

Traditional Instruction is clearly inappropriate in teaching and learning language in Vietnamese context because learners are still unable to produce the target structure appropriately a

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

THE EFFECTS OF PROCESSING INSTRUCTION ON THE LEARNING OF PAST SIMPLE OF VIETNAMESE

YOUNG LEARNERS

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

KỸ TRẦN MINH UYÊN

Supervised by PHAM VU PHI HO, Assoc Prof Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, November 2021

Acknowledgements

I cannot express enough thanks to my supervisor, Pham Vu Phi Ho, Assoc Prof Ph.D., for the continued support Without his considerable encouragement, I would not have complete the thesis

Moreover, my completion of this thesis could not have been accomplished without the support of one of my best friends who inspired me to conduct the thesis topic He was the person who intrigued me to conduct this thesis

Finally, I also want to express thanks to the committee who have left lots of constructive comments on my thesis to make it more valuable Your guidance is precious to me

Ho Chi Minh, November 2021

KỸ TRẦN MINH UYÊN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 1

Statement of originality 2

List of tables and figures 6

List of Abbreviations: 8

ABSTRACT 9

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 10

1.1 Background to the study 10

1.1.1 The views towards grammar instruction in language teaching 10

1.1.2 The contexts of grammar instruction in Viet Nam 10

1.2 Statement of the problem 12

1.2.1 In the world 12

1.2.2 In Vietnam 13

1.4 Aim of the study 15

1.5 Research questions 15

1.6 Significance of the study 15

1.7 Scope of the study 16

1.8 Outline of the thesis 16

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 17

2.1 Definition 17

2.1.2 What is input? 17

2.1.3 What is input processing? 17

2.1.4 What is Processing Instruction? 19

2.1.5 What is Traditional Instruction or PPP? 20

2.1.6 What is Structured Input Activities? 20

2.2 Processing Instruction: Lines of Research 21

2.3 Previous studies 22

2.3.1 PI outperformed TI 22

2.3.2 TI is more effective than PI 28

2.4 Conceptual framework 31

2.5 Research gap 32

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 36

3.1 Research design 36

3.2 Participants and context of the study 36

3.2.1 Context of the study 36

3.2.2 Participants 36

3.3 Research instruments 37

3.3.1 Pre-tests and post-tests 37

3.3.2 Focus group interview 40

3.4 Training procedure 41

3.4.1 Why is Past Simple Tense chosen for this study? 41

3.4.2 Materials 42

3.4.2.1 Explicit explanation 42

3.4.2.2 Traditional Instruction 43

3.4.2.3 Processing Instruction 44

3.4.3 Steps in training procedure 47

3.5 Data collection and Data analysis 49

3.5.1 Data collection procedure 49

3.5.2 Data analysis procedure 51

3.6 Reliability and Validity 52

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 55

4.1 Analysis of data 55

4.1.1 Students’ performance before treatment 55

4.1.2 The results from pre-test to post-test 56

4.1.2.1 Interpretation tests at sentence level 56

4.1.2.2 Interpretation tests at discourse level 57

4.1.2.3 Production tests at sentence level 58

4.1.2.4 Production tests at discourse level 59

4.1.3 The effects of PI and TI 60

4.1.3.1 Interpretation tests at sentence level 60

4.1.3.2 Interpretation tests at discourse level 61

4.1.3.3 Production tests at sentence level 62

4.1.3.4 Production tests at discourse level 63

4.1.4 Learners’ perception towards Processing Instruction 64

4.2 Discussion of results 67

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 78

5.1 Conclusion 78

5.2 Limitations 79

5.3 Implication 79

REFERENCES 81

APPENDICES 88

List of tables and figures

List of figures

Figure 2.1 Processes in Second Language Acquisition (VanPatten, 1993)

Figure 2.2 Processing Instruction model

Figure 2.3 Traditional Instruction model

Figure 2.4 New Processing Instruction model

Figure 3.1 Data collection

List of tables

Table 3.1 Instruction materials

Table 3.2 Training procedure

Table 3.3 Cronbach’s Alpha of pre-test and post-test

Table 4.1 Pre-test results

Table 4.2 Means and Standard Deviation of the Pre-test and Post-test (Interpretation tests at

sentence level)

Table 4.3 Mann-Whitney U Test results from pre-test to post-test of PI group (Interpretation

tests at sentence level)

Table 4.45 Means and Standard Deviation of the Pre-test and Post-test (Interpretation tests at

discourse level)

Table 4.5 Mann-Whitney U Test results from pre-test to post-test of PI group (Interpretation

tests at discourse level)

Table 4.6 Means and Standard Deviation for the Pre-test and Post-test (Production tests at

Table 4.12 Means and Standard Deviation for Post-test (Interpretation tests at discourse level) Table 4.13 Mann-Whitney U Test results of TI and PI group (Interpretation tests at discourse

List of Abbreviations:

Processing Instruction – PI

Traditional Instruction – TI

Structured Input Activities – SI activities

Presentation – Practice – Production – PPP

Meaning-based Output Instruction – MOI

Content and Language Integrated Learning – CLIL

Content-based Instruction – CBI

Second-language acquisition – SLA

First language – L1

Second language – L2

in Thu Duc City There were two groups of 34 participants divided into PI and control group The control group experienced the ordinary type of instruction which is called Traditional Instruction (TI) Pre-tests and post-tests were delivered to examine the improvement and to compare the effects of these instruction A focus group interview was also carried out to determine learners’ perception towards the target instruction The results recommended that PI group had significant effects on learners and obtained more benefits than control group The findings of focus group interviews indicated that learners feel more confident when they have time to process the structure before producing them They also mentioned some difficulties they have undergone so that researcher has a chance to redesign the activities to be appropriate

to learners’ need

Keywords: Processing Instruction, Traditional Instruction

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

1.1.1 The views towards grammar instruction in language teaching

The perspective towards grammar instruction is an exemplification with the continuing debate about its role in language education Krashen (1985) has dissented from the effectiveness of teaching grammar through his Monitor Model or Input Hypothesis The learning system only plays a monitor role for the acquiring system He assumed that learners can increase their second language competence when exposing to comprehensible input without noticing on the grammatical features mechanically Moreover, in 1993, he also claimed that grammar instruction was peripheral and insignificant, which referred back to his Natural Approach in 1983 with no L2 grammar instruction

On the other end of the spectrum, some learners and teachers have attached great value

to grammar, which was an indispensable part of language learning A large number of researchers such as Master (1994), Norris and Ortega (2000), Hedge (2000) and Thornbury (2001) claimed that grammar instruction facilitates language learning, while Lightbown and Spada (1990) and Nassaji and Swain (2000) provided a general view of instructing grammar

by drawing learners’ attention to the target grammatical feature to promote the comprehension and production performance of accuracy

However, Cadierno (1995) suggested that researchers should pay more attention to the effectiveness of each type of grammar instruction in lieu of arguing whether formal instruction makes a difference in SLA or not It is not worth concerning the value of grammar instruction while how grammar is taught is more beneficial For those reasons, researchers need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each type of grammar instruction and determine the appropriate grammar instruction in specific Vietnamese context

1.1.2 The contexts of grammar instruction in Viet Nam

Grammar-based tests have been prevailing in Vietnamese high schools for a long period, which leads to the spread of grammar-based teaching methodology in Viet Nam With the purpose of enhancing learners results in grammar-based tests, PPP or Traditional Instruction (TI) has been widely adopted in high schools across Viet Nam (Khuong, 2015;

Tran, 2015; Pham & Do, 2020) This method considerably concerns with the rules and grammatical structures which are explained explicitly and deductively by practicing producing the grammatical structure from L2 to L1

Therefore, concentrating excessively on grammar through PPP makes Vietnamese learners suffer from boredom and inability to communicate the language fluently (Khuong, 2015) It is vital to have a goal in developing learners’ competence in communicating inside and outside the classroom To enhance learners’ production skill, an output-based instruction was employed in Viet Nam which was PPP or Traditional Instruction (Tran, 2015; Bui & Newton, 2021; Do, 2020) However, Tran (2015) claimed that Vietnamese learners favor Communicative Language Teaching resulting in the survey and their scores Some Communicative Approaches, in terms of Content and language integrated learning (CLIL), Task-based Instruction or Immersion program in many International high schools, are popularly adopted in Vietnamese context Le and Barnard (2009) found out that Vietnamese teachers prefer meaningful and discourse approach to decontextualized grammar instruction, while However, Hymes (1972) argued that the ability to use the language is able to produce the grammatical structure not only accurately but appropriately as well Communicative Approach has fulfilled its responsibility of helping learners form a meaningful grammatical structure where communication is both the means and the ends of language instruction However, Communicative Approach also has the drawback which was mentioned by Willis (1996) that learners have a tendency to use incoherent lexical chunks instead of producing the target structure He also added that the acquisition of the target structure through dealing with tasks is motivated by the need of learners, which means that learners may not acquire the language if the tasks do not fulfil their need Ellis (2003) also pointed that learners tend to switch back to their first language (L1) when they find the tasks complicated and get impatient

to explain lengthily in the target language without comprehension For those reasons, Communicative Approach is the good method in promoting learners’ language performance but its drawbacks are inevitable, which should only be applied in some particular circumstances

Communicative Approaches have contributed substantially to the improvement of learners’ fluent production skills, whereas there are still many drawbacks of communication-focused approaches related to producing the accurate and grammatical structures Lighbown

and Spada (1993, p 105) mentioned that Communicative Approach employing Form-focused Instruction in association with corrective feedback are more beneficial than the programs that focus only on accuracy or fluency For those reasons, the integration of grammar instruction, especially Form-focused Instruction with Communicative Approach should be taken into consideration

Form-focused instruction is a type of pedagogical method that occurs in communicative contexts with two different specific approaches that are Comprehension-based and Production-based language instructions.Comprehension-based Instruction consists of many approaches such as Processing Instruction, Textual Enhancement, Discourse, etc (Nassaji & Fotos, 2011), while there are many approaches categorized into Production-based instruction such as Meaning-output Instruction (MOI), Presentation-Practice-Produce (PPP) or Tradition Instruction (TI), Dictogloss (Lee & VanPatten, 1995; Nassaji & Fotos, 2011), etc

1.2 Statement of the problem

1.2.1 In the world

Grammar is the soul of a language that contributes to the demonstration of the underlying meaning of the speakers, while views on grammar teaching and learning are still debatable Nowadays, many points of view on language education reject the effects of grammar instruction, while fluency is strongly emphasized over accuracy in Communicative Approach Focusing too much on fluency in L2 production leads to certain deficiency in grammatical accuracy (Harley, Cummins, Swain, & Allen, 1990; Lyster, 1999, 2004; Johnson & Swain, 1997) The failure of Canadian immersion program reached the conclusion that the amount of target language exposure does not gain high grammar and discourse competence (Mystkowska-Wiertelak, A., & Pawlak, M., 2012) Focusing too much on production of language may make learners suffer from grammar accuracy deficiency Afterwards, the place

of grammar instruction should be reconsidered in language learning system to improve learners’ fluency and accuracy at the same time instead of favoring only one aspect Recently, Form-focused instruction attracts lots of attention from many researchers around the world because this type of instruction put the structure in meaningful context that helps learners acquire the form thoroughly

1.2.2 In Vietnam

PPP (Presentation – Practice – Produce) model was referred as Traditional Instruction

by VanPatten (1993) in his study Therefore, this study is going to use the term ‘Traditional Instruction’ for PPP model Traditional Instruction is the model of teaching grammar in many teacher training courses among many top universities in Vietnamese language education system Moreover, Pham and Do (2020) considered Traditional Instruction as “framework for teaching grammar” (Pham & Do, 2020, p.970) Khuong (2015) mentioned that TI should be maintained get good result in grammar-based tests Tran (2015) also asserted that TI is widely applied in Vietnamese high school In addition, Willis stated that “PPP forms the basis of many teacher training courses” (Willis, 1996, p v) Therefore, Traditional Instruction or PPP model was widely used in Vietnam and in the world This method has been applied in Vietnamese education system for years while its effectiveness is still controversial The major advantage

of Traditional Instruction that needs to mention is creating more meaning-focused activities containing specific predetermined linguistics forms (Foster, 2009) Traditional Instruction provides learners a chance to practice producing the target structure for grammar-based examination

By contrast, this instruction leads to a plateau in communicative skills among learners despite many advantages that the method brings to the learners Ellis (2003) claimed that learners who experienced Traditional Instruction were unable to communicate outside the classroom Although Vietnamese learners are required to produce the target structure a lot during Traditional Instruction in oral and written form, their productive skills are still inferior

to receptive skill and they are still unable to apply the appropriate structures in different context According to the website of IELTS (www.ielts.org), Vietnamese IELTS test takers achieved 6.2 and 6.3 for Reading and Listening score, while Writing and Speaking score were only 5.7 average

According to Nassaji and Fotos, the Practice and Production stage is considered to be

‘formulaic’ and ‘decontextualized’ (Nassaji & Fotos, 2011) Moreover, Shitani (2013) pointed out the primary purpose of PPP is to practice the form in the context without engaging learners

in meaning-oriented interaction, which leads to the current problem that Vietnamese learners struggle to distinguish the different features and functions of the target structures (Dao, 2019) Nguyen (2020) indicated that Vietnamese learners tend to made most grammatical errors

toward tenses and aspects Dao (2019) added that Vietnamese learners would have more problems of distinguishing tense aspects if there were no provision of temporal adverbswhich leads to the incapability of using the structure in specific context They tended to use the incorrect form in inappropriate situation (Nguyen, 2020) The benefits of Traditional Instruction do not reaffirm the learners’ current need of producing the language fluently and accurately Learners are still unable to comprehend the use of the structure to apply in a specific context

Another problem was that the tests in Viet Nam are mainly grammar-oriented which requires a remarkable comprehension ability of grammar, while the ability to produce the structure also a goal of language learning Traditional Instruction is clearly inappropriate in teaching and learning language in Vietnamese context because learners are still unable to produce the target structure appropriately and differentiate the use of structure to complete the grammar-based national tests despite abundance of output practice

Vietnamese researchers are finding an instruction that improves learners’ communication competence in both fluency and accuracy criteria Many teaching method and approaches that enhance learners’ communicative competence have been received much attention such as Content-based Instruction (CBI), Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), or Immersion program, etc The Immersion program is on the way to conduct with the launch of bilingual primary school However, centralizing the fluency and communicative production may repeat the same mistakes as many countries in the world have already made before The lack of grammatical accuracy in communication among immersion learners is complicated problem that researchers are tackling (Lyster, 1997) Therefore, CLIL or Immersion may not be the appropriate solution for learners’ communicative skills when the accuracy in production is not emphasized

Another problem is related to the big class size in Vietnam which is usually around 35

to 40 students, compared to 15 to 20 students in some countries Consequently, the advantage

of producing the target language of Traditional Instruction may disappear in Vietnamese classroom which learners have little chance to produce the target structure during class time due to the big class size Producing the structure is the only advantage of Traditional Instruction, but this advantage turns into disadvantage in the context of Vietnamese big-sized classroom

For those lessons from other countries in improving learners’ both fluency and accuracy, focused on form grammar instruction is still worth a try The type of grammar instruction that may solve learners’ problems of producing inappropriate and incorrect structures seems to be Procession Instruction (PI) Processing Instruction is believed to provide

a form-meaning connection that helps learners comprehend the structure in the given context through the considerable amount input, while PI also improves learners’ production skills (Shitani, 2013) Moreover, PI does not require learners’ production during instruction which solves the big-sized class problems

1.4 Aim of the study

The aim of the study is to find an appropriate grammar instruction that addresses learners’ need of using the structure in appropriate context By examining the effects of Processing Instruction on learners and interviewing process to gain learners’ perception, this study is able to discover the proper instruction that supports learners better The learners’ results as well as their perception were analyzed to discover the effects of Processing Instruction on learners

1.5 Research questions

1 Would learners receiving PI improve from pre-test to post-test on the interpretation and production tests of English Past Simple tense at sentence level and discourse level?

2 Would learners receiving PI make more significant gain on interpretation tests and production tests than TI group at sentence level and discourse level?

3 What is learner’s perception towards Processing Instruction?

1.6 Significance of the study

This study contributes to the development of grammar instruction in Viet Nam The role of grammar instruction is still controversial in Vietnamese context as well as in the world Many researchers believed that grammar instruction is not essential in language learning, while Vietnamese learners struggle with forming a sentence when producing them (Nguyen, 2020) Moreover, intensive grammar instruction in public school has brought no benefits to learners because they are unable to use the structure fluently despite lots of output-based practice This

study recommends an appropriate grammar instruction for young learners so that they are able

to use the accurate target structure in specific context A flexible combination of input and output during practice stage can offer considerable benefits to learners

1.7 Scope of the study

The purpose of this experimental study is to compare the effects of TI and PI on learning Past Simple tense among young learners in Vietnamese context Besides, this study also aims to identify learners’ perspective towards different types of instruction to discover their favorable instruction as compared to their result A series of pre-tests and post-tests were conducted to reach the purpose of the study Moreover, focus group interviews were also carried out to fulfil the second purpose of the study The population of the study was restricted in a system of language centers with small sample The study occurred throughout the duration of 8 weeks in a language center in Ho Chi Minh City

1.8 Outline of the thesis

This thesis is going to mentioned the theoretical background related to Processing Instruction and Traditional Instruction There were many previous studies of these

instructions provided in Chapter 2 Literature Review The methodology as well as data collection and data analysis procedure were mentioned in Chapter 3 Then, chapter 4

consisted of the results and the discussion of the results Finally, chapter 5 involved the limitations of the study and some recommendation for future studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Processing Instruction is a part of Comprehension-based language instruction which learners process the input to connect form and meaning leading to the vital role of input First

of all, some definitions related to input should be taken into consideration Moreover, PI followed the input processing theory in SLA which is also clarified in order to have a full view

of Processing Instruction Many previous studies have been conducted to confirm the effects

of PI, while there were some opposite results towards PI Finally, a new conceptual framework for this study is formed and applied

2.1 Definition

2.1.2 What is input?

The notion of ‘input’ has been developed over many years according to the perception

of each research towards input In 1996, VanPatten described ‘input’ as the thing “that learners hear or see to which they attend for its propositional content (message)” (VanPatten, 1996, p.10) 10 years later, Farley defined ‘input’ as “the raw linguistic data (oral or written) to which learners are exposed” (Farley, 2005, p 109) The definition of ‘input’ was also regarded as

“samples of language that learners are exposed to in a communicative context or setting” (Wong 2005, p.119) Until 2011, Nassaji and Fotos stated the conception of ‘input’ as “sample

of language that learners are exposed to and attempt to process for meaning.” (Nassaji & Fotos,

2011, p 20) Based on many definitions of ‘input’, it comes to the conclusion that ‘input’ is something learners exposed to and processed in a particular setting, which is “the single most important concept of second language acquisition” (Gass, 1997, p 1) The role of input was ascribed to Krashen with Input Hypothesis which states that learner’s process language by comprehending the input For that, input takes a prominent role in SLA field and language instruction

2.1.3 What is input processing?

VanPatten (2004) has referred the term ‘processing’ as the process of making meaning connection which directs learners to notice the form to determine the meaning From the notion of ‘input’ and ‘processing’, input processing is described as linking form-meaning strategy which learners initially formulate themselves from the received input during

form-instruction (VanPatten, 2003; Lee & Benati, 2009) The term ‘input processing’ is explicated

in the Processes in second language acquisition model which is initially developed by VanPatten in 1993, 1996, 2002 and 2004

Figure 2.1 Processes in Second Language Acquisition (VanPatten, 1993)

VanPatten’s Processes in SLA model suggested 3 divergent sets of processes that form the process of second language acquisition which are input processing, accommodation and

access (VanPatten, 1993) (see Figure 2.1) The first process described as input processing is

the conversion of input to intake which plays a role in developing learners’ acquired system The strategies and mechanisms promoting form-meaning connections during comprehension are involved in this stage (VanPatten, 1993) The second process, which is called accommodation, takes responsibility of incorporating data into the developing system which leads to the occurrence of restructuring the developing linguistic system (McLaughlin, 1990; White, 1989 as cited in VanPatten, 1993) Finally, the incorporation of linguistic data into the developing system has been accessed and monitored via learners’ production

Input processing is the first process in second language acquisition according to the model developed by VanPatten In this process, learners are directed to create form-meaning link to convert input into intake in the proper way during comprehension The term ‘intake’ in this situation is defined as the “subset of the input that has been processed in working memory and made available for further processing” (VanPatten, 2004, p.6) In other word, after receiving input, learners are instructed in transform the received input to the linguistic data stored in the memory for the later processing According to VanPatten, input processing is the step that teachers need to take action to make implications for the developing system This is

why the Processing Instruction is developed throughout the years thanks to input processing theory

2.1.4 What is Processing Instruction?

Processing Instruction (PI) is a Comprehension-based language instruction which is based on VanPatten’s principles of Input Processing aiming to help learners abandon the inappropriate processing strategies and apply the appropriate ones because learners do not always use the efficient strategies when processing input (VanPatten, 2004) The instruction makes an impact on the first process according to VanPatten’s model to improve learners’ developing system The major goal of PI is to allow learners to make form-meaning connections and push them to more optimal input processing strategies Wong (2004) defines Processing Instruction as an explicit grammar teaching that “is informed by a model of how L2 learners initially process L2 input to make form-meaning connections.” (Wong, 2004, p 33)

What makes PI different from other approaches is that PI develops the activities that helps learners process the input more efficiently and correctly As in Figure 2.2, teachers make impact on the first process in SLA that is ‘Input Processing’ The instruction includes processing mechanisms and focused practice are focused during this phase without any intervention of the instruction in the second and third process in SLA Lee and VanPatten (1995) claimed that asking learners to produce the structure when they are not ready is like putting the cart before the horse

Figure 2.2 Processing Instruction model (VanPatten, 1993)

2.1.5 What is Traditional Instruction or PPP?

Traditional Instruction (TI) is an output-based instruction which output practice has main effects on the developing system TI focuses on 2 main stages, grammar explicit explanation and output-oriented practices which go from mechanical to communicative activities (VanPatten & Oikkenon, 1996; VanPatten, 2000; Cheng, 2002; Benati, 2005) Traditional Instruction has another name as Presentation-Practice-Production or PPP This study is going to refer this type of instruction as Traditional Instruction Learners’ production

is considered to be the backbone of Traditional Instruction while all the activities in the instruction process tend to manipulate learner production of the target structure Traditional Instruction occurs when learners are asked to practice producing the target form followed by the grammar explanation The third stage of second language acquisition model which is monitoring and accessing the output received more attention in this type of instruction (as in Figure 2.3) The instruction focuses on practice during this stage by deliberately controlling the learners’ output

Figure 2.3 Traditional Instruction model

2.1.6 What is Structured Input Activities?

Processing Instruction embraces a practical activities to enhance learners’ performance which is Structured Input Activities (SI activities) SI activities are the activities that encourage learners to be mindful of the target structure for meaning in both spoken and written forms (VanPatten, 1993; Lee & VanPatten, 2003) There are 2 types of SI activities which are recommended by VanPatten (1996): referential activities and affective activities Referential activities which take notice of form to get meaning provide learners the right or wrong answer

The correct answer reveals the understanding of learners about the structure On the other hand, affective activities which relate learners to the real world do not have right or wrong response These activities involve learners in expressing their opinion about the particular circumstance

Designing SI activities requires an attentive process with 2 main steps proposed by VanPatten (1993) The first step is to identify the Processing strategy According to the Lexical Principle which states that learners pay attention to the meaning of the input before processing the form when they are confronted with input Considering the processing strategies contributes to correcting learners’ input processing strategies Therefore, identifying Processing strategies is the first thing to complete when designing SI activities VanPatten (2004) has suggested guidelines of effective SI activities which were also mentioned in other studies such as Farley (2001, 2005); Nassaji & Fotos (2011) and Wong (2005) because of its effectiveness in Processing Instruction There were six principles for Structured Input activities were identified which was strictly followed when designing the SI activities (VanPatten, 2004,

p 38)

2.2 Processing Instruction: Lines of Research

Many studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of PI in many divergent aspects Lee (2004) and Benati and Lee (2008) categorized the various aspects of PI effects into five lines of research including the comparison with others types of output-based instruction and other input enhancement techniques, examining the internal components, different delivering modes and the long-term effects Among these five lines of research, the comparison with other output-based instructions which is to measure the primary effects of PI

is the center of attention with a great number of studies related to this aspect the whole time (VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993; Cadierno, 1995; DeKeyser & Sokalski, 1996; Allen, 2000; Benati, 2001, 2005; Cheng, 2004; VanPatten & Wong, 2004; Farley, 2001, 2004; Chan, 2010; Lee and Benati, 2010, etc.) The Traditional Instruction was regularly chosen to compare with

PI because that is now the dominant grammar instruction in many foreign language classrooms (Lee & Benati, 2008) However, the result of those comparisons is still a controversial issue among researchers

Besides, the internal components that contribute to the learners’ performance in PI are also received attention Thanks to many studies related to this aspect of research, the positive

effect of PI is confirmed to be promoted by Structure Input activities (VanPatten & Oikkenon, 1996; Benati, 2004; Farley, 2004; Wong, 2004; Lee & Benati, 2007)

The ways PI is delivered are also investigated The suspicion about the modes of PI was confirmed through many studies Lee et al (2007), Lee and Benati (2007a) and Benati (2007b) concluded that the different modes of delivering PI are equally effective no matter how the lesson is conducted They also claimed that the key point that makes change in learners’ development system is the instruction itself not the way it delivers

Researching PI in various angles gives a critical look into the feature of the instruction This study is going to concentrate on the most attentive and controversial line of PI research which is the comparison with other output-oriented approaches A rigorous examination of the effects of PI and other instructions is carried out

2.3 Previous studies

2.3.1 PI outperformed TI

In 1993, VanPatten and Cadierno kicked off the notion of Processing Instruction based

on his Input Processing theory about how learners process the input Their research intended

to compare the effects of explicit instruction in processing input and producing target structure

in teaching Spanish The study was conducted on sophomores who were in a developing communicative skills program The participants were divided into two groups, PI and TI with Spanish clitic object pronouns instruction which adhered to the First Noun Principle in input processing theory The instructional packets were different between two groups PI group received explicit explanation with processing strategies followed by Structured Input activities while TI group experienced explicit explanation and output practice which went from mechanical drill to meaningful drill and communicative activities The assessment materials included interpretation tasks and production tasks The results of the study recommended that

PI outperformed TI in interpretation tasks while PT showed no difference in production tasks despite no production practice during PI Processing Instruction was proved as outstanding instruction as compared to Traditional Instruction in interpretation tasks because PI “enhanced how learners process input and provided intake for the developing system” while Traditional Instruction did not (VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993, p 238) They also highlighted that TI helped learners perform the task “without acquiring any new language” (VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993,

p 238) In the study, VanPatten and Cadierno also clarified the underlying reasons for Traditional Instruction little effect on interpretation tasks They argued that learners’ input processing was not enhanced during traditional instruction which led to the limited intake In addition, Traditional Instruction provided learners with the ‘different knowledge system’ as

‘learned competence’ (VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993, p 238) Although the study truly conducted in processing theory and input processing strategies was formed, the study itself indicated some limitations that need to consider The production tasks were measured the learners’ output quantitatively, which may obscure the qualitative differences among learners

In addition, the practice activities as well as the tests in the study were all at sentence level and there were no spontaneous spoken production tasks When the sentence was put in the connected discourse, the question of whether learners process the input differently between 2 different instructions or not should be examined Due to this limitation, this study was going

to put the target structure into discourse level in both practice and assessment to examine the differences in processing input In the other hand, VanPatten and Cadierno has never recommended a removal of making output According to Figure 2.2, learners need to access the developing system to produce language fluently and accurately The time to practice using the linguistic gains they made during processing stage to produce language should be given The problem did not lie on whether output practice was necessary but on when output practice was appropriate For that reason, another research gap from VanPatten and Cadierno’s (1993) work that this study is going to fill is the incorporation of the output practice after structured input activities during Processing Instruction to enhance the effect of PI

Cadierno (1995) was also on the track to confirm the significance of processing input

by comparing PI and TI with a different structure, Spanish past tense, which employed the other principle presented by VanPatten (1993), Lexical Preference Principle The study consisted of 61 university learners of basic Spanish course who were in 2 treatment groups, PI and TI Cadierno (1995) proved that PI has a noticeable effect on both interpretation and production tasks even though there was no output practice during PI treatment while TI only improved on the production tasks Furthermore, PI outperformed TI on interpretation tasks and had the same effects as TI on production tasks She also explained the little effect of TI on interpretation tasks was that TI made learners practice performing the tasks but not acquiring new language structure As VanPatten & Cadierno (1993), the study of Cadierno in 1995 also

did not involve spontaneous speaking assessment which would be mentioned in Benati (2001) One of the limitations of the study is the meaningfulness among tasks in 2 treatment groups is not balanced According to Benati (2001), Cadierno’s work tended to focus on PI meaningful practice while TI has little meaningful activities, which may influence the results To overcome this shortcoming, the meaningfulness among activities in 2 types of instruction should remain equivalent in this study Cadierno (1995) as well as VanPatten & Cadierno (1993) emphasized the important role of output in improving the ability of fluent production Therefore, the abolishment of output should be taken into reconsideration The act of adding output practice

to PI is more certain and has theoretical evidence Hence, this study is reasonable enough incorporate output within Processing Instruction context

In order to fill in the gap of the previous studies, Benati’s (2001) aimed to expand research field of the effects of PI with another language structure, Italian future tense, among university students Moreover, Benati’s study was distinctive from previous studies in assessment process with oral productions tasks which were added in the testing procedure along with written production tasks Benati (2001) filled the gap from previous studies by having another production type of tasks to confirm the effects of PI on various types of production tasks, especially spontaneous speaking The treatment in his study which focused

on communicative value in both groups to prevent bias towards this group over the other was different from Cadierno (1995) The results of his work was the same as VanPatten and Cadierno (1993, 1995), which presented the improvement of both TI and PI groups from pretest to posttest PI was also proved to surpass TI in interpretation tasks and had the same effects as TI on production tasks This study successfully asserted the positive effects of PI on the structure in other language, not Spanish but still getting the same result as previous studies Benati also indicated that TI made some improvements on interpretation tasks despite its little effect He explained that TI learners “must have accessed some knowledge to perform the interpretation task” (Benati, 2001, p 116) Both types of instruction witnessed the improvement in production tasks similarly, especially the oral production tasks which highlighted PI effects on having better intake Even though PI learners had never practiced producing the structure, the results showed the improvement on production tasks as significantly as TI The question was whether PI learners who also practiced producing the

structure get higher scores in production tasks than TI learners This study is going to fill that gap by conducting the experiment that PI is combined with output practice

Benati continued to broaden the result of PI effects with other target structure in his study in 2005 about English Simple Past Tense by putting PI, TI and MOI in comparison The purpose of his study was to compare the effects of 3 treatments among learners in different native languages that were Greek and Chinese The participants in his study changed from university students to secondary school students to generalize the effects of PI on different participants Another type of instruction besides PI and TI has been compared which was MOI MOI employed Structured Output activities with no mechanical drill which received lots of negative viewpoint from many researchers Assessment task included interpretation and written production tasks as many previous studies without spontaneous tasks The results indicated the improvement in both interpretation and production tasks among PI, TI and MOI groups Specifically, PI outperformed both TI and MOI in interpretation tasks no matter what their native language was In production tasks, 3 groups improved equally with no significant difference He concluded that PI was superior to other output-based instruction by altering learners’ processing strategies, Lexical Preference Principle to be specific (Benati, 2005) He also argued that PI had direct effects on developing system which learners accessed to produce the language This argument explained for the PI learners’ gains in production tasks despite no output practice in this instruction Output was believed to help learners produce language fluency and accuracy except for getting the structure into learners’ head (Benati, 2005) However, when learners have some time to practice accessing to knowledge source to produce the language after comprehending the structure through SI activities, will the results in production task of PI groups become different? This study is going to explore this contentious issue Benati added that the effects of PI have no relation with meaningful or mechanical activities, which opposed with Benati (2001) and Erlam (2003) which assumed meaningfulness

is the factor that may influence the effects of the instruction The controversy is going to be clarified in this study with completely meaningful PI activities and partial meaningful TI activities with mechanical drill If the result shows the superior to completely meaningful activities, meaning will be a factor that impacts the result Besides, Benati (2005) only examined the effects of 3 instructions on English Simple Past Tense at sentence level When

the sentence is presented in connected discourse, will PI still be superior to TI and MOI? This study is trying to answer this question

Houghton (2008) have examined the effects of PI and TI on Simple Past Tense and third person singular verbs in a different perspective He investigated the transfer-of-training effects besides the primary effects of PI The primary structure was Simple Past Tense while the second structure was third-person singular The new learners’ background which was Korean native language was researched They were middle school students at beginning level

of English learning who had never exposed to the target structure There were two groups experienced the instruction in the study which were PI and TI group The instructional packets were all the same as previous studies PI groups obtained explicit information and processing strategies then Structure Input activities while TI went through paradigmatic explanation and output practice with mechanical drill and meaningful activities There was no official instruction of third person singular verb in two groups However, the ability to interpret and produce the secondary structure was assessed in testing procedure The results of the primary structure demonstrated the superior effects of PI over TI on interpretation tasks while production tasks revealed the similar effects between two groups The results were in line with the previous results that supported VanPatten’s input processing model Houghton also added the reason for PI effectiveness was that PI altered the way learners process the linguistic data

to connect form to meaning The true value was the transfer-of-training effects of PI Only PI improved significantly from pretest to posttest while TI did not Houghton explained for this result that “TI practice only makes the form available for production; it cannot make it available to processing mechanisms” (Houghton, 2008, p 118) To some circumstances, PI had a considerable impact on learners’ developing system and language competence A study

on PI may have some contributions in language teaching

Adapting the activities in teaching English Simple Past Tense from Houghton, Benati and Lee (2010) continued to place PI into a new perspective that was at discourse level This study also researched the young learners to strengthen the Age Hypothesis of PI (Benati & Lee, 2008) Learners were Chinese speakers who were at the beginning level and had never been exposed to the target structure The learners were divided into 3 groups, PI, TI and control group The tests were developed in 2 versions, sentence-level and discourse-level test There were no production tasks in assessment procedure The results recommended that PI surpassed

TI and control group at sentence level as well as discourse level The results of sentence level were consistent with the previous findings of Benati (2005) and Houghton (2008) Benati claimed that PI was effective with different age from young learners to adult learners He also added that PI enhanced learners’ performance in interpreting the language in embedded discourse Benati himself claimed limitation of the study that the sample size was small and there was no delayed posttest However, his study did not include production task embedded

in discourse This study is going to fill the gap with the test of production of the target structure

in the specific situation

A study conducted by Chan (2018) aimed to investigate the instruction used for teaching Past Simple tense and compare the effects of PI, TI and Implicit Instruction (II) The participants of the study included primary and secondary teachers and primary students in Hong Kong There were 2 phases in the study The first phase was the survey of how Simple Past Tense was being taught, while the second phase was an experimental research that compared the effects of PI, TI and II There were 3 treatment groups with 66 participants in primary school occurred in 1.5 hours each day PI group involved learners in explicit

explanation and structured input activities TI included mechanical drills, meaningful drills and communicative drills II group engaged learners in reading passages using past simple tense without explicit explanation The assessment procedure consisted both interpretation and production tasks The results of this study suggested that PI group improved significantly from pre-test to post-test, while the other groups only made small gains Moreover, students received PI outperformed the other two groups He stated that the explicit explanation had great impact on learners’ production competence, while PI was useful in enhancing learners’ ability to interpret the structure by aiding learners in connecting the form and meaning He also added that TI should be used as a reinforcement The findings from the survey in phase 1

of this study recommended that most teacher preferred TI and task-based instruction, while

PI was hardly adopted in primary and secondary school He suggested that PI perfectly fit for teaching Past Simple Tense and some structures that required to process the form while attending to the meaning (Chan, 2018)

Another study conducted by Mable Chan in 2019 published by Elsevier also argued about the effects of PI, TI and Implicit Instruction (II) on teaching Past Simple Tense The participants were native speakers of Cantonese in a primary school in Hong Kong No

tutorial lesson besides school time among participants This study evaluated both

interpretation and production tasks However, only interpretation tasks were designed at sentence and discourse level, while production tasks were only at sentence level The study involved 3 groups PI, TI, and II PI groups included explicit explanation and structured input activities TI group also involved learners in explicit instruction and output-based practice from mechanical drills to communicative drills The II group did not provide any explicit explanation but learners were able to gain exposure to the target structures through

comprehension reading and listening to a passage The results indicated that only PI group gained significantly in interpretation tasks, while the other two groups did not The results of production tasks demonstrated that PI and TI have influenced learners on producing the structure, while II learners made a small gain The discourse interpretation task results

showed that PI was the only group that show a greater improvement than TI and II TI and II was concluded ineffectiveness in interpreting the structure In production tasks, TI was proved to be as efficient as PI in helping learners produce the forms He also recommended that TI was impactful in production tasks, which was used as a reinforcement with PI as classroom intervention His judgment led to the idea of combining the structured input

activities in PI group and meaningful and communicative practice in TI group This

integration may create a better effect on learners

2.3.2 TI is more effective than PI

In researching into the influence of PI in learners’ developing system, many studies complied with the outstanding impact of PI whereas some studies recorded controversial finding In 1996, DeKeyser and Sokalski replicated VanPatten and Cadierno (1993)’s experiments on Spanish direct object clitics as well as conditionals in order to generalize the result from their work University freshmen participated in 3 groups, control, input-practiced and output-practiced group The explicit information for the instructional groups was consistent The exercises for each groups were similar despite the input and output version for each group The results of Direct Object Clitic revealed that both input and output groups outperformed control group while there were no differences between input group and output group in both comprehension and production tasks About the conditional structure, only output group achieved higher score than control group in both comprehension and production tasks whereas input group performed better than control group in production tasks DeKeyser

and Sokalski (1996) asserted that input practice contributes to comprehension task while output practice improves production, which conflicted with VanPatten and Cadierno (1993)’s findings that input practice enhances comprehension task while output practice has the same effects as input practice in production task However, VanPatten (2004) has commented that some activities in DeKeyser and Sokalski (1996)’s study did not direct learners’ attention to meaning He added that the input practice activities were not truly PI because there was no processing strategy pointed out in the study The activities did not alter learners’ incorrect processing strategies as well as connect form to meaning Therefore, the input practice could not have the SI activities effect Moreover, VanPatten stated that the input practice did not follow the SI activities guidelines which is “Keeping meaning in focus” because the activities did not require learners to rely on form to get meaning This study will learn from DeKeyser and Sokalski (1996)’s study that this study will avoid mistakes in designing activities which adheres to the SI activities guidelines from VanPatten (2004) and identifies the processing strategies at the beginning of the PI treatment to direct learner to attend to form-meaning connections

Although the activities in DeKeyser and Sokalski was not well-designed, DeKeyser and Sokalski (1996)’s explanation was plausible that output practice is in charge of improving production while input is for comprehension This statement has never run into opposition from previous study about PI VanPatten, Cadierno, Benati, Farley has stated that there was no evidence to abandon output practice Therefore, the combination of input and output still have

a place to try experiment

Continue with PI research, Allen (2000) also gave the evidence that contradicted VanPatten’s theories and findings Her study replicated VanPatten and Cadierno (1993)’s study to generalize he results The effects of two types of instruction, PI and TI, were investigated through comprehension and production tasks on French causative structure The difference from VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) was that there were open-ended production task and more participants 179 students were divided into 3 treatment groups, PI, TI and control group The results showed that both PI and TI groups made gains and were better than control group Specifically, PI had the same effects as TI in interpretation task while TI was significantly better than PI in production task although PI group did have improvement The results remained unchanged in the delayed posttest, which demonstrated that TI was generally

better than PI Allen herself explained for the difference that an absence of adequate input in

PI group may lead to the superior of TI She also claimed that VanPatten and Cadierno (1993)’s study cannot be generalizable to French causative and PI may only be effective for certain structures However, VanPatten (2004) has offered some rational explanation for the contrast results from Allen’s study Allen has overcome DeKeyser and Sokalski (1996)’s problem of identifying the processing strategies which was First Noun Principle However, her SI activities still did not direct learners’ attention to form to get meaning VanPatten commented that learners “were being led to memorize a pattern with these activities rather than rely on sentence structure for meaning” (VanPatten, 2004, p 58) VanPatten also pointed out the problem in designing the questions that the answers were easily chosen based on learners’ critical thinking VanPatten and Wong (2004) has replicated Allen (2000)’s work with some modification to avoid the problem he mentioned and presented a different finding that PI and

TI made gains from pretest to posttest in interpretation task, but this time, PI performed significantly better than TI In production task, there was no significant difference between two groups although two groups improved from pretest to posttest The effects were remained

on delayed posttest Learning from Allen’s failure, this study is going to design the SI activities carefully that requires learners to rely on form to process meaning The activities must be well-prepared that learners cannot use their critical thinking to guess the correct answers

Another study that had a contradict results of VanPatten’s findings is conducted by Erlam (2003) The study aimed to examine the relative effects of PI and OBI on learning French direct object pronoun 3 classes of secondary school students were assigned in 3 groups,

SI, OBI and control group Testing procedure included listening comprehension, reading comprehension, written production and oral production test The results demonstrated that OBI outperformed SI in both comprehension and production tasks Specifically, SI has the same effect as OBI in reading task and is able to maintain over time, but SI loses its benefit in listening comprehension task Erlam (2003) concluded that SI can maintain gains over time However, she explained for the difference in listening and reading task due to the low reliability

in test design, which may impact the result In production task, OBI was superior to SI both in spoken and written form This result was explained that meaning plays an extremely important role in developing system Erlam, at the same time, disregarded the role of input in learning new structure while featuring the meaningfulness of the activities She argued that OBI

outperformed SI in production task because the majority of the practice in OBI are meaningful However, the point is that OBI was meaningful while SI was not so that OBI was better than

SI VanPatten (1993) has stated the rule for SI activities that is “keeping meaning in focus” Therefore, SI activities must be meaningful as well as OBI Erlam’s explanation for OBI advantage was not really plausible Erlam also accounted for target structure automatic use that OBI was better in using the structure intuitively because OBI requires immediate responses with more pressure To some extent, output has some benefits on learners’ performance This study is going to take advantage of output expediency as well as input to maximize their effects

by combining them in the instruction Moreover, the controversial result about the effects of

PI and TI is worth a try to examine in different participants

2.4 Conceptual framework

According to previous studies, there were a considerable number of studies that confirmed the superior of Processing Instruction to Traditional Instruction (VanPatten and Cadierno, 1993; Cadierno, 1995; Benati, 2001, 2005; Farley, 2001; Houghton, 2008; Benati and Lee, 2010; Kirk, 2013; Yamashita and Iizuka, 2017; Chan, 2018, 2019) The outperformance of Processing Instruction which demonstrated the theory about input processing that transfer input to intake recommended by VanPatten (1993, 2004) was critically consistent Accordingly, the input processing in PI is significant to learners’ developing system where learners access to interpret and produce the structure, which should have a place in grammar instruction In general, the Processing Instruction model as in Figure 2.2 was proved

to be effective in learning grammar structure

Although Traditional Instruction was believed to make little improvement on interpretation tests, TI group had a considerable impact on learners’ production skills with the evidence of improvements in many prior studies (VanPatten and Cadierno, 1993; Houghton, 2008; Benati and Lee, 2010; Chan, 2018, 2019) As in Figure 2.3, the focused practice on output was manipulated to enhance the effects of TI on producing the output Therefore, output practice was still worth a place in developing learners’ production skill Moreover, the role of output has never been denied in many studies related to Processing Instruction although PI does not include output-based practice

Processing Instruction manipulates the input during input processing, while Traditional Instruction pays attention to producing output In other words, input processing aids learners’

comprehension skills, while manipulating output develops production skills (Cadierno, 1995) The benefits of input processing which was proved in VanPatten and Cadierno (1993), Cadierno (1995), Benati (2001, 2005), Houghton (2008), Chan (2018, 2019), whereas the advantage of output practice as in Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1985), Houghton (2008), Benati and Lee (2010) Chan (2018, 2019) is believed to enhance learners’ performance considerably According to these assertions, new model of Processing Instruction was constructed This study is going to employ this new model of Processing Instruction PI learners’ production results is expected to be superior to TI In summary, this study is going follow the new framework for PI model as in Figure 2.4 that PI group manipulates both input and output practice

Figure 2.4 New Processing Instruction model

2.5 Research gap

This study intends to bridge the gap of many previous studies and clarify the actual effects of PI According to some prior studies, the results about the effects of PI is still controversial without any consistent answers Besides a large number of researchers obtained the supporting results of the effects of PI (VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993; Cadierno, 1995; Benati, 2001; Farley, 2001; Cheng, 2002; Benati, 2005; Farley, 2008; Houghton, 2008; Qin,

20008; VanPatten, 2009a, 2009b; Benati & Lee, 2010), many authors argued that input is not the most important factor in developing system so that PI does not improve learners’ results (Erlam, 2003; Short & Bowden, 2006) The effects of PI are still controversial which requires

a confirmation Therefore, this study may contribute to confirm the previous inconsistent results about the advantages of PI The answer of this study’s first research question about the improvement of PI group will be discovered to determine the positive effects of PI on learners’ comprehension and production skills

On the different aspect, learners are expected to be able to use the language accordingly

in different context However, some previous studies have reinforced the advantage and even disadvantage of Processing Instruction on comprehension and production skills but those studies rarely measured learners’ ability to interpret and produce the language in embedded discourse Many studies from VanPatten and Cadierno (1993), Cadierno (1995), Dekeyser and Sokalski (1996), Allen (2000), Benati (2001), Farley (2001), Erlam (2003), Benati (2005), Short and Bowden (2006), Farley (2008), Qin (2008), etc only assess learners’ ability to use the language at sentence level Benati and Lee (2010) have designed the assessment plan to measure learners’ ability to comprehend the structure in specific context They have clearly stated that PI has a beneficial effect on learners’ developing system over TI at discourse level (Benati & Lee, 2010) However, Benati and Lee’s (2010) work still have some gaps that need filling which is that learners’ ability to produce the target form at discourse level was not assessed Their study left behind a question about whether learners are able to produce the structure appropriately in specific context when they comprehend the structure rules and uses Therefore, this study plans to measure the interpretation and production tests at sentence and discourse level which did not occurred in many previous studies This gap leads to the first and second research question about the improvement of PI learners and the comparison of learners’ gain on interpretation tests and production tasks at sentence level and discourse level in two groups, TI and PI

In addition, many studies pointed out that output still have a place in developing system VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) and Cadierno (1995) claimed that the abandon of output practice is not advocated They believed that output have impact on developing system although the impact is not as much as input processing They also stated that output is responsible for fluency in production Erlam (2003) also reinforce the crucial role of output in

learners’ performance in her study Benati (2001) confirmed the findings of VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) and Cadierno (1995) that both PI and TI improved in production tasks similarly even though the PI learners have never practiced producing the target structure Therefore, if PI learners have a chance to practice producing the structure, whether they will improve their production tasks This study is going to find the answer for this question by integrating output practice with Processing Instruction In light of output practice benefits, DeKeyser and Sokalski (1996) asserted that output practice is in control of producing structure while input processing is helpful for comprehending the structure The combination of both input and output practice may bring to expected result that both comprehension and production skills are enhanced Therefore, the integration of input and output is evidently supported In

2008, Keating and Farley mistakenly designed Meaning-based Output Instruction (MOI) activities that resembled PI with output practice and got the results that MOI learners improved significantly better than other groups in both interpretation and production tasks PI with output practice is scientifically supportive Finally, Kirk (2013) have compared PI and PI with output practice He claimed that the output practice did not hinder the learning process Output practice have never received negative reactions from previous research studies The act of combining output practice and SI activities in this study is theoretically grounded For that reason, this study is going to integrate output practice with PI to examine its effectiveness The output practice followed Structured Output guidelines recommended by Lee and Patten (1995) This study is going answer the research question 1 and 2 about whether PI group including production practice improves from pre-tests to post-tests and performs better than TI group in interpretation and production tests at sentence and discourse level However, the Processing Instruction that included production practice should be still referred as “PI group” in this study despite the different practice stage due to the purpose of being concise and easy to follow Moreover, this group still retains essential features of PI, which makes it reasonable to continue using the term “PI” for the output-integration PI Due to the additional production practice in

PI group, the results of the first and second research questions are expected to be inconsistent with previous studies

Finally, the most outstanding aspect from this study is the intention to conduct the focus group interviews to gain learners’ perception towards many features of PI in order to point out whether PI is suitable for Vietnamese learners After determining the appropriate instruction,

this study also aim to compare their viewpoints with their actual results This interview has never happened in many prior studies, which fills the gap about learners’ perception towards Processing Instruction Chan (2018) had also conducted a survey among teachers about their favorite way of teaching Past Simple Tense Few of them decided to deliver the grammar lesson using Processing Instruction However, a deep interview into learners’ insight of the instruction has never carried out Learners’ attitude towards the way they learn plays a vital role in constructing the appropriate types of instruction for them because they are the center of the classroom The interview is applied to answer the third research question about learners’ perception toward PI

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter is going to describe the design of the study, the participants and the context

of the study Moreover, the research instruments and materials are also clarified in this chapter After determining those criteria, the process of data analysis as well as training procedure are going to be mentioned

3.1 Research design

This study employed a mixed method involving a quasi-experimental method and focus group interviews to find the answer for 3 research questions This combination of qualitative and quantitative research is called Explanatory method that a qualitative acts as a supporting role for quantitative results The quasi-experimental method included pre-tests and post-tests was employed to examine and compare the effects of PI and TI on learners’ learning of Past Simple Tense The findings of the interviews were used to determine learners’ perception towards Processing Instruction and to confirm the results of the learners’ post-tests

3.2 Participants and context of the study

3.2.1 Context of the study

The study occurred in a language center which is a system with 10 branches around Ho Chi Minh City Each branch consists of approximately 25 classes for mostly kids and teenagers Regarding kid programs, there are 12 levels ranging from beginner to pre-intermediate The chosen participants were at level 6 of the program which is prepared for Movers tests The study was conducted in 2 centers in Thu Duc City Learners’ family in this area is mainly in working class who hardly spend time on their children English learning process

3.2.2 Participants

There were 34 students in total who were assigned to two groups: Processing Instruction (PI) and Traditional Instruction (TI) There are 18 students in PI group and 16 students in TI group The subject pool involved young learners at the age of 8 to 11 They are

at A1 level and prepare to take the Movers test All of them are Vietnamese native speakers who started to learn English in their early age from 5 to 6 years old The participants rarely use

English outside the classroom because Vietnamese people mainly use their first language in daily activities However, they have exposed to English through songs and some movies in English on TV but English program is their limited choice on the daily basis according to the researchers’ observation from the learners Most importantly, learners are supposed not to learn Past Simple tense before However, the pre-test is a valuable tool to prove that whether they have already learned Past Simple tense or not

The age range from 8 to 11 is chosen because they are still new to second language learning and they do not have a mindset of learning grammar as the previous Vietnamese generations have experienced Moreover, they are exposing to lots of communicative-based methods such as STEM, CLIL, TBLT, etc in their primary school They are fluent in speaking English but their grammar use is not correct and inappropriate, especially tense use

3.3 Research instruments

In order to answer three research questions mentioned before, there were two research instruments that were employed in this study which were pre-tests – post-tests and focus group interviews

3.3.1 Pre-tests and post-tests

First of all, a series of pre-tests and post-tests were conducted The tests used in this study were adapted from previous studies (Benati, 2005; Houghton, 2008; Benati and Lee, 2010; Chan, 2018, 2019) and Movers practice tests Those tests concentrated on measuring learners’ input comprehension competence and structure production ability at both sentence and discourse level For that reasons, there were two types of tests in the assessment system in this study which were Comprehension tests and Production tests There are 2 versions of test, namely, version A and version B In order to ensure the validity and reliability, half of the class will do version A and the other half do version B for both pre-tests In post-tests, students who have done version A will complete version and vice versa During the test, learners are required

to sit far away from their friends to prevent them to copy their friends’ work The teachers and teaching assistant also observe the learners carefully to make sure they do not cheat during the test in order to measure the learners’ competence accurately The test consists of 40 items in total for interpretation and production tasks The Movers test for this level is composed of 60 questions in Listening, Reading and Writing section Therefore, the number of items in the test

of this study is suitable to learners’ age and level The test lasted an hour with 30 minutes for comprehension test and 30 minutes for production test

Interpretation tests were applied to measure learners’ ability to interpret the meaning

of the input from sentence to discourse level Interpretation tests in this study were designed

to examine whether learners are able to understand the use of Past Simple Tense In the first and second tasks of the tests, learners were asked to choose whether the sentence occurred in the past or now after listening to the sentences in task 1 and reading the sentences in task 2 These activities resembled Benati (2005), Houghton (2008), Benati and Lee (2010), and Chan (2012, 2019) interpretation test activities The format of those activities was adapted from those studies, while the content was extracted from Movers practice test which was at the participants’ level The sentences that students interpreted were from Cambridge Movers practice tests to ensure the reliability and validity of the tests The next two tasks of the tests were similar to the first two tasks but those tasks were at discourse level Learners were supposed to listen to a conversation and decide the event in that dialogue happened in the past

or today After that, they read a passage to choose the action performed in the past or today The dialogues and reading passage all came from Cambridge Movers practice tests, while the design of those tasks were adapted from Benati and Lee (2010) Each correct sentence is marked 0.5 point while incorrect one receives no point for sentence interpretation tests Discourse interpretation tests record 1 point for each correct choice There are 20 items in sentence interpretation tests, while discourse interpretation tests consist of 5 conversations in listening task and 5 questions in reading task The highest point for sentence interpretation tests

is 10 and discourse interpretation tests receive 10 points in total The number of the questions are limited because of the short attention span of young learners

Production tests at sentence level were employed to measure learners’ competence of producing the target structure at both sentence and discourse level There were 2 tasks in this type of test with one task examining at sentence level and the other task at discourse level The sentence level task required learners to describe a given picture by answering the questions This task was adapted from Benati (2005) but the context was provided to learners to make the task more meaningful The questions were about the activities the man did last week The information about those activities were displayed in pictures which were taken from Cambridge Movers practice tests Learners were supposed to describe the pictures in full

sentence and in correct tense use There was no guided word in this task The sentence with correct verbs choice and tense use recorded 2 points There are 5 questions with 10 point in total For each answer, 1 point goes for the correct verb choice while the other point is for the verb in the correct tense use The ability to choose the correct verb to make a sentence indicates that they are able to access their developing system to form the structure For that reason, the correct verb choice worth one point in this test On the other hand, the correct tense use confirmed learners’ ability to draw upon the source of knowledge to put the words together to make a sentence grammatically when producing the structure (VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993) Therefore, one point for the correct tense use was rational

The discourse level production test provided participants with a series of pictures Learners were instructed to write a story related to the given pictures They were supposed to write in full sentence with the correct tense use The story was about event happening in the past This activity in the test was similar to Cheng (2002) with a slight modification that he provided learners with guided words, while this study gave learners a series of pictures The series of pictures that made up the story were taken from Cambridge Movers practice tests in speaking parts This task also resembled the speaking test in Movers tests which required learners to make a story orally based on the sequence of pictures Instead of making the story orally as in the Movers tests, learners were supposed to compose the story in written form in this study Learners need to think of the verb choice and the tense of the verb Therefore, as in sentence production test, lexical choice and verb tense use were two criteria for assessment The correct choice of verb receives 0.5 point and 2 points are for the correct structure There are 4 pictures in the story that participants are expected to write one sentence for each picture

8 points are given for 4 accurate structures with 2pts each, while the other 2 points go for the correct verb choice with 0.5 each The total point for discourse production task is 10 The main purpose of the test was the accuracy and writing fluency Therefore, the correct word choice and grammar structure contributed to learners’ scores Besides, writing fluency was recorded through the time limit of the tests where learners only had 30 minutes for production tests This study does not intend to evaluate the criteria about coherence and cohesion because improving writing skill is a different story because grammar instruction may not have any effects on the way learners connect the ideas However, the correct order of the sentences in the story is