Attention to Meaning and Form vs. Attention to Meaning Alone: The Effect of Focus on Form on Vocabulary Retention in an EFL Context

This paper investigated the usefulness of focus on form in the retention of the vocabulary items. Two homogenous groups were chosen for this study. The teacher taught both the form delicacies and the meaning of the words to the students of the experimental group but only the meaning of the words to the comparison group. Both groups studied 3 chapters of a book. At the end of the treatment period, the same vocabulary test was given to both groups. Statistical analysis showed that students who had learned the form and the meaning components of vocabulary together outperformed the other group.