The Efficacy of Incidental Attention to Formulaic and Nonformulaic Forms in Focus on Form

Abstract Focus on form (FonF) studies have predominantly addressed its effectiveness in improving learners’ syntactic, lexical, orthographic, and phonological knowledge. Extending the scope of this line of research to formulaic FonF practices, this study investigates the relative effectiveness of incidental FonF targeting formulaic versus nonformulaic forms through (successful) uptake rate and individualized posttests. Formulaic forms refer to collocation, idiom, lexical bundle, and compound, whereas nonformulaic forms refer to grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling. A total of 551 focus‐on‐form episodes (FFEs) with formulaic foci, and 874 instances of FFEs with nonformulaic foci were identified in 30 hours of teacher–learner interactions in English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language classes. FFEs with formulaic and nonformulaic foci ( n = 446) were used as the basis for developing individualized test items. This study found that learners produced (successful) uptake more often following FFEs with formulaic foci than nonformulaic ones, while they performed less successfully on the individualized immediate and delayed posttests in the case of formulaic‐oriented FFEs. Based on the regression analyses, the occurrence of successful uptake following FFEs with formulaic foci was not found to be a significant predictor of learners’ retention of target forms on the individualized posttests.