Incidental Focus on Form and Two Types of Reconstruction Tasks: an In-class Application

This study derived from the growing body of descriptive research investigating two different types of focus on form tasks requiring the learners to produce output collaboratively. The study aimed to compare the effectiveness of two types of collaborative output tasks (dictogloss and text reconstruction) on promoting the students? attention to form. The participants were 20 Turkish EFL students who completed the tasks in pairs of 5 and their talk was audio-recorded. The transcriptions were coded as language related episodes (LREs). The tasks were compared regarding the amount, type and nature of attention each task generated. The findings revealed that both tasks were effective in promoting the student?s attention to from. While reconstructing the texts, both groups paid attention to a variety of grammar-based, meaning-based and orthographic items. However, in both tasks, grammar based episodes took the learners attention more compared to other two categories. Lastly, both tasks were effective in facilitating the students? discussion on form and meaning, and at the end of their discussion, the pairs could correctly resolve most of the linguistic problems.