Exploring focus on form in language teaching

Abstract

Form-focused instruction is an extremely complex and multidimensional field, the investigation of which is of relevance to both researchers and practitioners and, as such, holds the promise of closing the gap between theory, research and pedagogy. This introductory paper provides a definition of focus on form in language teaching, discusses various interpretations of the concept, describes the past, present and future research directions, and outlines the criteria that successful studies in this area should satisfy. It also briefly presents the organization of the volume and makes a strong case for further empirical investigations of the contributions of teaching formal aspects of language.