Title: Effects of the Pre-emptive FoF Instructions on Junior High School Students’ Acquisition of English Simple Past Tense

Abstract: It is generally believed that the explicit pre-emptive FoF instruction (EPFoFI) is more effective in English grammar teaching and learning than the implicit pre-emptive FoF instruction (IPFoFI). Based on the Interaction Hypothesis, this paper studies EPFoFI’s and IPFoFI’s effects on junior high school students’ acquisition of English simple past tense. The results show that EPFoFI’s and IPFoFI’s effects on the subjects’ perception of English simple past tense are different. The results of the writing post-test indicate that the subjects’ production proficiency of English simple past tense under IPFoFI is much better than that under EPFoFI. Although there is no significant difference between the results of the immediate post-test on the teaching and learning of English simple past tense under the two instructions, the results of the delayed posttest tell that the effects of IPFoFI are superior to those of EPFoFI.

Keywords: simple past tense, explicit / implicit pre-emptive FoF instruction, perception, production proficiency

Author: Minzhe Chen, Professor, Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China; Fang Hou, Ph. D. Candidate, Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China; Fengting Zhong, Yuxian School, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.