Encouraging Learners’ Autonomy in Focus-on-Form Classrooms

This article contributes to the growing body of discussions concerning focus on form, defined as the incidental attention that teachers and L2 learners pay to form in the context of meaning-focused instruction. Whereas many previous studies concern teacher’s role and what teachers can do to implement the focus on form approach, that is, to seek the balance between meaning and language form in language teaching, this paper tends to examine the learners’ roles in a focus on form classroom. The discussion consists of three parts: part one of the paper is about the nature, two categories and the two ways of practising Focus on Form in a SLA classroom; in part two learners’ roles are examined respectively under each of the two conditions in classroom. And part three is devoted to the discussion of the implication of the present theory under the context of Chinese college English teaching. The discussion provides a new perspective to view the difference between Focus on Forms and Focus on Form and is expected to provide college English teachers in China a new way to improve their teaching in real classroom.