Effects of content-based English lessons incorporating form-focused tasks on upper secondary school students’ content knowledge and grammatical knowledge

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that content-based instruction does not offer students many opportunities to focus on language. In response, form-focused tasks have been proposed as the alternative way to incorporate in content-based classrooms in order to help the learners to focus on both content and language. In Thailand, however, research study about effects of form-focused tasks in content-based classroom is rarely found. The researcher, therefore, conducted the present study to examine the effects of content-based English lessons incorporating form-focused tasks on upper secondary school students’ content knowledge and grammatical knowledge. The participants were forty-five eleventh grade students from Banphuepittayasan School. The instructional instruments consisted of course materials about local cultures in Banphue and lesson plans. The research instruments consisted of content knowledge test and language test. The data from the content knowledge tests and the language tests were analyzed using t-test. The findings revealed that content-based English lessons incorporating form-focused tasks enhanced learners’ content knowledge and grammatical knowledge. The mean scores of the content knowledge post test and the language post test were higher than the mean scores from the pretests at the significant level .05