Application of SPOCs-Based Blended Teaching into Explicit Instruction on Syntactically Complex Constituents

This study constructs SPOCs-based blended instruction with explicit attention to syntactic complexity and investigates, through an exploratory study, the effects of such instruction on EFL learners' syntactic awareness. With grammatical error correction and syntactic word-order tasks conducted before and after a training program, the results reveal a significant improvement in learners' syntactic awareness of syntactic patterns in fiction and academic writing. The results suggest that the SPOCs-based training program with a register focus on syntactic complexity benefits EFL learners' metalinguistic awareness, especially in academic discourse. The present study sheds light on the classroom-oriented research to construct SPOCs-based blended teaching approaches and evaluate the effectiveness of such pedagogy.