Publications

Explicit grammar instruction, which directs learners’ focus to linguistic forms, is crucial for attaining accuracy in a second language. However, several challenges need to be addressed, especially with young EFL learners. The one that we focus on in this chapter is drawing Spanish EFL children’s attention to two problematic grammatical features: the third person singular morpheme –s of the present tense of English verbs and the possessive determiners his/her. This chapter presents the implementation of a pedagogical intervention, namely, pre-task planning, which is intended to improve the children’s production of those forms. In pre-task planning the children are allowed to have some time before they actually perform a task in the hope that they will have time to focus on the meaning of the material presented to later focus on the form in the actual task performance. We have also considered whether giving them time to plan in their first language (Spanish) will make a difference compared to planning in the foreign language. Pre-task planning did not lead to immediate improvements but its implementation offered insights to refine grammar instruction for this group of learners.