Oral Pushed Output: the Route to Long-term Grammatical Accuracy

This study investigated the impact of oral pushed output on the learning and retention of English perfect tenses. During the study, a pre-test was administered to 22 freshmen majoring in English translation. The participants were randomly assigned to two groups. Then, for six sessions both groups received explicit instructions on English perfect tenses. Every session, the experimental group recorded their oral performances on some picture description and translation tasks whose completion entailed the use of the instructed language form, while the control group merely did some conventional multiple choice tests covering the instructed structures. Following the treatment sessions, a post-test was run. Four weeks later, a delayed post-test was also administrated. Analysis of the data through repeated measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) supported the facilitative effects of oral pushed output on the learning and retention of English perfect tenses. The finding of the study can have some implications for English Language Teaching (ELT) materials developers and practitioners.