Form-focused Language Activities

The participants were provided with three types of form-focused language activities to help them comprehend the construction of postmodified noun phrases. The researcher designed these activities based on the notion of structured input activities (VanPatten, 2004) and task-based activities (Takashima, 2000b; 2005).

Activity 1 (Appendix A) was regarded as a Task-Oriented Activity⁶: the participants played a card game. Activity 2 (Appendix B) was also a type of Task-Oriented Activity: the participants played another type of game using cards and envelopes. In Activities 1 and 2, the participants used predetermined sentences such as “Please open the blue card on the yellow card,” and “I think a homerun card is in the yellow envelope in the blue envelope.” The difference between Activities 1 and 2 was the prepositions “on” and “in” used in the predetermined sentences. Although two different prepositions were used in these activities, it was anticipated that the participants would notice that they were used in the same way.

Activity 3 (Appendix C) was a type of structured input activity: the participants read a text and chose one of two given pictures corresponding with the meaning of the text. Two similar pictures were provided for each text; thus, the participants had to compare different word orders in postmodified noun phrases and match them with the intended meaning. Details about the three form-focused language activities are presented in the following sections.

2.3.1.1 Activity 1

Activity 1 (Appendix A) was a form-focused Task-Oriented Activity in which the participants worked in pairs in the classroom to play a card game. There were cards in four colors: yellow, green, blue, and orange. Each participant in the pair had a set of 16 cards (four cards per color). The cards were aligned on the desk in front of each participant. Each of the participants could ask the other to turn over a card to see the other side.

The main rule of the game was that a player won by continuing to ask the other to turn over a card with a picture of a “smile” and lost by asking the other to turn over a card with a picture of a “skull.” To play the game under these rules, the participants had to choose a card on or under another card and communicate the color of the card. If a participant chose a green card, there were at least four patterns of pairs, for example, a green card on a yellow card, a green card on an orange card, a green card under a blue card, or a green card under a yellow card.

Appendix A shows the participants’ worksheet for Activity 1. The instructions on the worksheet required the participants to use noun phrases postmodified by a prepositional phrase, such as “the blue card on the yellow card” and to distinguish differences in the meanings of similar postmodified noun phrases (e.g., “the blue card on the yellow card” vs.

“the yellow card on the blue card”).

Basically, in a Task-Oriented Activity, learners produce the target structure by engaging in a dialog. The task in this activity involved learners in using postmodified noun phrases. It was based on processing instructions, and focused on form-meaning mapping. If the participants could distinguish the forms corresponding to the meanings, they were deemed to have advanced from the stage of comprehended input to intake (Gass, 1997).

2.3.1.2 Activity 2

Activity 2 (Appendix B) was a similar Task-Oriented Activity: there were large and

small envelopes in a total of four colors. Each envelope contained a card displaying “homerun”

or “out,” and the participants attempted to find as many homerun cards as possible by using a predetermined expression such as “I think a homerun card is in the yellow envelope in the blue envelope.”

In this game, four sets of two small envelopes inside one large envelope were placed on a desk. Each of the paired participants chose and opened one of the small envelopes in the

large envelope.

The main rule was that the player who found the most homerun cards won the game.

The game was played based on the rules of baseball. If one player found an “out” card, the other would have to find an “out” card in turn. Players who found a “homerun” card could make another choice. The rounds continued until all the cards are were used. To play the game according to the rules, the participants had to choose one small envelope inside of a large envelope to attempt to obtain a “homerun” card. To indicate the color of the envelope, they had to use predetermined sentences with postmodification.

In this case, if a participant first chose a small green envelope, another small green envelope was still available inside of a different colored large envelope (e.g., “the green envelope in the yellow envelope” and “the green envelope in the orange envelope”). A participant who wanted the other to open the small blue envelope in the large green envelope had to say, “I think a homerun card is in the blue envelope in the green envelope.” If the other then mistakenly started to open the green envelope in the blue envelope, the action was countermanded. Such corrections also occurred in Activity 1, so precise feedback was involved in both games. With this feedback, the teachers in this study led the participants to notice differences between two postmodified noun phrases rather than providing explicit instruction on the construction of these phrases.

2.3.1.3 Activity 3

As mentioned in Section 2.3.1, Activity 3 (Appendix C) involved structured input.

The participants read one sentence with postmodification and chose between two pictures, one of which corresponded to the intended meaning of the sentence. In the study by VanPatten (1996), one of the guidelines for structured input activities is that oral and written input should be used.

In Activities 1 and 2 (both Task-Oriented Activities modified by processing instruction), the participants used oral input, and in Activity 3, they used written input. For Activity 3, ten sentences with postmodified noun phrases and two pictures chosen to correspond with each sentence were provided. Some sentences were similar to others, because the two nouns in the postmodified noun phrase (e.g., the ice cream in the cup) were switched (e.g., the cup in the ice cream). The meaning of the phrase “the cup in the ice cream”

was inappropriate based on the Event Probability Principle (VanPatten, 1996). The participants naturally thought that ice cream should be put in a cup. If they comprehended the construction, they would think that the cup was put in the ice cream. Activity C was designed for the participants to visually notice the difference between similar noun phrases.