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The icing on the cake? Effects of explicit form-focused instruction after two years of implicit EFL learning
Abstract
This study is part of a larger project where explicit form-focused instruction (FFI) and practice concerning grammar was reduced and delayed for two years in the foreign language classroom. Participants are two cohorts of secondary school children learning English as a foreign language (N = 393). In the present study we investigated if reducing and delaying explicit FFI would affect performance on a common grammar test. One cohort received traditional explicit FFI with metalinguistic information and grammar exercises (the explicit group). According to the participating teachers’ self-report, approximately 37% of classroom time was spent on grammar instruction and practice. The other cohort (the implicit group) received predominantly implicit FFI without any metalinguistic information and all grammar exercises were removed from the course book materials. In the last seven weeks of the second school year, the implicit group received seven classes of explicit grammar instruction and practice (total of approximately 6% of classroom time). Grammar tests were administered in a pre-, immediate post and delayed post-test design. The implicit group was tested before the grammar course, then both groups were tested at the end of the second year and again four months later.
Results of multilevel modelling showed that the implicit group improved significantly between the pre-test and the immediate post-test. The implicit and explicit group scored equally well on the immediate and delayed post-test. This study shows that after a (longer) period of implicit FFI only minimal explicitness and practice is sufficient to score well on a common grammar test.
... The classroom study by Piggott et al. (2020) involved 416 Dutch learners of English as a foreign language and investigated the effectiveness of a two-year program with explicit grammar instruction and a program without explicit grammar instruction. All 416 students used the same coursebooks, but in the implicit condition, the grammar explanations were removed, and the time left was used for more listening and reading tasks from the book. ...
... When we relate these findings to the literature reviewed, the results of this study clearly align with previous classroom studies conducted in Dutch secondary schools (see Andringa et al., 2011;Rousse-Malpat, 2019;Piggott et al., 2020) with regard to complexity and fluency. In all studies, the implicit teaching programs appear to be as effective as explicit teaching programs. ...
... In all studies, the implicit teaching programs appear to be as effective as explicit teaching programs. As for accuracy in writing, Piggott et al. (2020) reported that students in the explicit condition performed better on accuracy measures, while in this study students in the implicit condition performed better on complexity and fluency measures and equally well on accuracy measures. This seems logical as the implicit group in the Piggott et al. (2020) study was tested after two years, while in this study, students were tested after six years, and as Rousse-Malpat and showed, the implicit learners seem to take longer to internalize the more subtle morphosyntactic patterns. ...
In the Netherlands, teaching programs for French as a foreign language in secondary school usually involve an explicit focus on grammar. This is partially motivated by early findings in SLA research, which showed that explicit instruction is more effective in foreign language acquisition (Norris, & Ortega, 2000; Spada, & Tomita, 2010) and is even considered essential to achieve accuracy in advanced writing (Gunnarsson, 2012). The aim of this classroom study is to test these claims as it compares a structure-based (SB) method to a Dynamic Usage-Based (DUB) method in developing writing mastery in a pre-university program for French. The results suggest that both programs are equally effective in achieving grammatical accuracy and obtaining general text scores, but a DUB program seems more effective in achieving lexical complexity and fluency.
A review of the usage-based linguistics literature reveals multiple macro-approaches providing a wide range of research findings. A number of case studies of individual learners have confirmed the usage-based trajectory of moving from item-based constructions towards more abstract structures. Other studies have focused on groups to identify general trends. Some studies have found that usage-based learners develop higher general proficiency than learners who take a grammar-based course and do as well on grammar tests. A number of corpus studies have been used to track learner progress using large data sets. These found that as learners become more proficient, they move from using a small set of general verbs to using a wider set of more specific verbs in verb-argument constructions. A major area of interest has been individual variation and variability and research confirms that there is wide variation in individual development. Other studies have found that student groups taught with a multimedia usage-based approach achieve more than others taught using communicative pedagogy. Finally, researchers have found that online independent language learning is growing in significance and is highly valued by learners.
Chunks are multi-word sequences that constitute an important component of the mental lexicon. In second language (L2) acquisition, chunking is essential for attaining fluency and idiomaticity. In the present study, in order to examine whether chunks provide a processing advantage over non-chunks for L2 learners at different levels of proficiency, three groups (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) English-speaking learners of Chinese participated in an online acceptability judgment task and a familiarity rating task. Our results revealed that the participants in all three groups processed chunks faster and with fewer errors than they did non-chunks. It was also found that the observed processing advantage of chunks could not be explained by a familiarity effect alone, thus suggesting that L2 learners across the board store chunks as holistic units. The implications of chunk instruction in relation to input frequency and variability in L2 settings are also discussed.
This is an ambitious work, covering the whole breadth of the field from its theoretical underpinnings to research and teaching methodology. The Editors have managed to recruit a stellar panel of contributors, resulting in the kind of 'all you ever wanted to know about instructed SLA' collection that should be found on the shelves of every good library. " Zoltán Dörnyei, University of Nottingham, UK The Routledge Handbook of Instructed Second Language Acquisition is the first collection of state-of-the-art papers pertaining to Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA). Written by 45 world-renowned experts, the entries are full-length articles detailing pertinent issues with up-to-date references. Each chapter serves three purposes: (1) provide a review of current literature and discussions of cutting edge issues; (2) share the authors' understanding of, and approaches to, the issues; and (3) provide direct links between research and practice. In short, based on the chapters in this handbook, ISLA has attained a level of theoretical and methodological maturity that provides a solid foundation for future empirical and pedagogical discovery. This handbook is the ideal resource for researchers, graduate students, upper-level undergraduate students, teachers, and teacher-educators who are interested in second language learning and teaching.
In this study we compared the effects of two types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on second language (L2) learning and their potential contributions to the development of different types of L2 knowledge. Both types of instruction were pre-emptive in nature, that is planned and teacher generated. In Integrated FFI attention to form was embedded within communicative practice; in Isolated FFI it was separated from communicative practice. Two groups of adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) received 12 hours of Integrated or Isolated FFI on the ‘passive’ construction. Learners’ progress on a written grammar test and an oral communication task indicated no significant differences between the instructional groups over time. However, some advantages were observed for Integrated FFI on the oral production task and for Isolated FFI on the written grammar test. The results are discussed in relation to instructed second language acquisition (SLA) research an transfer appropriate processing theory.
Many educational institutions offer second- or foreign-language (L2) programmes that give students many more hours of contact with the target language than is typical of foreign-language instruction in schools around the world. This article compares some of the instructional approaches developed for both second- and foreign-language learners at the primary and secondary school levels. The approaches are compared in terms of several characteristics, including goals and outcomes. The review suggests that, even when more time is available, it is important to provide learning opportunities that focus on both meaningful language use and the vocabulary and structure of the language itself. In addition, the research shows that supporting students' knowledge of their first language (L1) can contribute to their long-term academic and L2 success.
So far empirical studies have shown that explicit Focus-on-Form (FonF) methods are more effective than implicit Focus-on-Meaning (FonM) methods (Norris & Ortega, 2000). However, many studies fail to address the notion of ‘effectiveness’ and the tests used usually favor the explicitly taught FonF groups in that some explicitly taught ‘rule’ is targeted. This paper argues that the effectiveness of FonF versus FonM methods will depend on how effectiveness is defined and operationalized and when it is measured. We compared the oral fluency of two groups of high school students after two years of instruction. One group was taught French with a FonF method, and the other with a FonM method called AIM (Maxwell, 2004). The free speech data of the two groups were scored for general proficiency (Study 1) and analyzed for grammatical accuracy (Study 2). The study shows that after two years of instruction the FonM scored higher than the FonF on oral proficiency and the same on grammatical accuracy.
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The goal of this study was to explore the contribution that a dynamic usage based (DUB) perspective can bring to the establishment of objective measures to assess L2 learners’ written texts and at the same time to gain insight into the dynamic process of language development. Four hundred and thirty seven texts written by Dutch learners of English as an L2 with similar backgrounds were holistically coded for proficiency level, which ranged from beginner to intermediate (A1.1 to B1.2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference). Each text was hand coded for 64 variables as distilled from the literature at
sentence, phrase, and word level. Statistical analyses showed that broad, frequently occurring, measures known to distinguish between proficiency levels of writing expertise did so in this corpus too: sentence length, the Guiraud index, all dependent clauses combined, all chunks combined, all errors combined, and the use of present and past tense. However, almost all specific constructions showed non-linear development, variation, and changing relationships among the variables as one would expect from
a dynamic usage based perspective. Between levels 1 and 2 mainly lexical changes took place, between levels 2 and 3 mainly syntactic changes occurred, and between levels 3 and 4 both lexical and syntactic changes appeared. The transition between levels 4 and 5 was characterized by lexical changes only: particles, compounds, and fixed phrases. The study shows that even short writing samples can be useful in assessing general proficiency at the lower levels of L2 proficiency and that a cross-sectional study of
samples at different proficiency levels can give worthwhile insights into dynamic L2 developmental patterns.
While a growing body of research has addressed the outcomes of K–12 foreign language (FL) study, relatively little is known about the relationship between teachers’ practices and students’ proficiency development (Hlas & Hlas, 2012; Tschirner & Malone, 2012). To fill this gap, the current study, set in a large urban school district, investigates how differences in teachers’ (N = 26) self‐reported use of the target language (TL) and explicit grammar instruction relate to secondary FL students’ (N = 2,179) yearlong gains on a standardized language performance assessment. Findings reveal a largely positive effect for TL usage, which was most pronounced in the beginner levels. Meanwhile, explicit grammar instruction yielded mixed results, beginning with a negative effect in Level I and transitioning toward a positive effect by Level IV. Collectively, the findings suggest that best practices for FL teaching may in fact vary according to the level of instruction. Connecting teacher practices to student outcomes is critical to identify elements of instruction that may lead to increased student proficiency development. How are students’ yearlong gains in performance influenced by teachers’ target language usage and attention to explicit grammar? How do these relationships differ across languages and levels of instruction?
This meta-analysis offers a snapshot of thirty-five years (1980–2015) of research on instructed second language acquisition (ISLA). Fifty-four empirical studies involving a total of 5,051 second language learners – sampled from six applied linguistics journals, Applied Linguistics, Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, The Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and TESOL Quarterly – were aggregated for the effects of second language (L2) instruction, yielding an overall large effect size, g = 1.06, 95 % CI = 0.84−1.29. Data were further analysed to identify factors that can modulate the efficacy of instruction. While a minor difference was detected between explicit and implicit instruction, statistically significant effects were found for modes of outcome measures, learners’ onset L2 proficiency, research settings, and intensity of instruction.
The Netherlands are quite unique in that the Dutch have always learned various foreign languages. Until 1940, French was the most important foreign language. Between roughly 1870 and 1970, Dutch learners in grammar schools and higher secondary schools were even obliged to learn three foreign languages: French, German and English. Since 1970, however, English has become the first foreign language, and proficiency in French and German has declined. As for methodology, Dutch foreign language teaching/learning (FLT) has always taken a practical stand, in which the question ‘does it work?’ is paramount. This article provides an overview of the developments that have characterised Dutch FLT from approximately 1500 to the present day.
It is widely accepted that teacher cognitions—what teachers know, think, and believe—play a significant part in teachers’ decision-making processes. The present study investigated the specific cognitions that 74 Dutch undergraduate and postgraduate student teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) had on grammar instruction and how these interfaced with learner-oriented cognitions. Ten focus group interviews were held in which the necessity of grammar instruction, its role in the foreign language (FL) curriculum, and different approaches to grammar teaching were examined in relation to student teachers’ perceptions of their learners. The results show that the participants considered explicit, systematic, and isolated grammar instruction a necessary condition not only for linguistic correctness but also for advanced communicative competence. Moreover, complex interactional patterns were identified between cognitions on meaning- and form-focused approaches on the one hand and learner characteristics on the other. Conceptions of the position and role of grammar in the FL classroom were found to be mediated by student teacher perceptions of learner autonomy, motivation, intellectual capabilities, needs, and instructional preferences. Awareness of these patterns may assist foreign language teacher educators in uncovering how their students operationalize grammar teaching, thereby creating opportunities to engage in deep, reflective processing of topics raised in grammar teaching courses and their link to teaching practice.
In foreign language (FL) teaching and learning, a substantial amount of content is provided in grammar exercises supplied by textbooks. The main focus of this study concerns the selection of grammar exercise types in FL textbook series. In our analysis, we focus on Dutch, Finnish and global textbooks for beginners aged approximately 13–15 years who are learning German (A0–A2 on the CEFR scale). Furthermore, an insight into the pedagogical approaches to grammar learning favoured in these textbooks is provided. The findings show that blank-filling exercises are the most frequently used exercise type in all the textbooks, with the amount ranging from 30.8% to 59.0%. The results of the analysis also indicate that the approach to learning grammar is a mixture of the Presentation-Practice-Production approach and strongly controlled learner-centeredness. Finally, based on the results of our study, we suggest that more variation within grammar exercises is required to meet the needs of different learners and their learning styles. Above all, we conclude that there is still a gap to be bridged between the reality in FL textbooks and the ideal presented in the research literature.
Materials in general, and commercial materials in particular, play a central role in language learning and teaching. As Richards (2001: 251) notes ‘Much of the language teaching that occurs throughout the world today could not take place without the extensive use of commercial materials.’ Yet, until relatively recently, this was a neglected area in English Language Teaching (ELT) research and publication. Tomlinson (2012) identifies the early nineties as the decade in which serious attention began to be shown towards materials development. Fortunately, the last few years have seen an increase in this attention with a number of new publications, including Harwood (2010), Tomlinson (2008), Tomlinson and Masuhara (2010a), Tomlinson (2013), as well as new editions of previous publications (McDonough and Shaw, 1993, 2003; McDonough, Shaw and Masuhara, 2013; Tomlinson, 1998, 2011). An important contribution to the field has also come from Tomlinson’s (2012) state-of-the-art review of materials development.
INTRODUCTION: COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVES ON DIFFICULTY AND COMPLEXITY IN L2 ACQUISITION - Volume 38 Issue 2 - Alex Housen, Hannelore Simoens
This study examines the effects of the timing of explicit instruction (EI) on grammatical accuracy. A total of 123 learners were divided into two groups: those with some productive knowledge of past-counterfactual conditionals (+Prior Knowledge) and those without such knowledge (−Prior Knowledge). Each group was divided into four conditions. Two (Pre-EI and Pre+During-EI) studied an EI handout prior to a composition task, but only the Pre+During-EI learners were allowed to refer to it during the task. The Post-EI learners received the handout after completing the task to use to revise their texts. The control group only completed the task. An error correction test and a text reconstruction test were used as pre- and posttests. Results showed that whereas the −Prior Knowledge learners benefited more from receiving the EI prewriting than postwriting, the +Prior Knowledge learners benefited more from the opportunities to consult the EI during or after the writing task.
‘Focus on form’ (FonF) is a central construct in task-based language teaching. The term was first introduced by Michael Long to refer to an approach where learners’ attention is attracted to linguistic forms as they engage in the performance of tasks. It contrasts with a structure-based approach – ‘focus on forms’ (FonFs) – where specific linguistic forms are taught directly and explicitly. However, there is perhaps no construct in second language acquisition (SLA) that has proved so malleable and shifted in meaning so much. This review article begins by considering how Long’s original definition of it has stretched over time and then offers an updated definition of the construct based on the view that the term is best used to refer to specific kinds of ‘activities’ or ‘procedures’ rather than to an ‘approach’. A classification of different types of focus-on-form activities/procedures is then presented. There follows a discussion of focus on form from a psycholinguistic and discoursal perspective along with a review of research relevant to these perspectives. The article addresses a number of criticisms that have been levelled against focus on form, with special consideration paid to how focus on form can be utilized in instructional contexts where more traditional (i.e. FonFs) approaches have been the norm.
This study begins by describing measures of linguistic accuracy in second language writing research. We first report on measures that have been used in the last ten years including holistic measures, error-free units, number of errors, number of specific error types, and measures that take error severity into account. We discuss differences in the measures used now vs. those reported on in Polio (1997) and conclude that interrater reliability and detailed coding guidelines are still underreported, making replication of studies very difficult. We then apply ten of these measures to the MSU data set to determine which are the most reliable and which best show change over time. The measures comprise holistic and error-free units as well as counts of specific error types. With the exception of counts of certain error types, we were able to obtain over .80 reliability on the measures though some of the measures were much easier to use than others. In addition, we attempted to determine whether or not these measures were measuring the same or different constructs by looking at correlations and change over time. Among the correlations, some were expected and some not. One conclusion was that weighted error-free units did not seem to differ from standard error-free units. Only the holistic measures and the number of preposition errors showed any change over time.
This selective review of the second language acquisition and applied linguistics research literature on grammar learning and teaching falls into three categories: where research has had little impact (the non-interface position), modest impact (form-focused instruction), and where it potentially can have a large impact (reconceiving grammar). Overall, I argue that not much second language acquisition or applied linguistics research on grammar has made its way into the classroom. At the conclusion of the discussion of each of the three categories, I speculate on why this is so. I also find misguided the notion that research should be applied to teaching in an unmediated manner. This is not to say that research should have no impact on pedagogy. In concluding, I offer some ways that I believe it could and should.
This lecture considers what reference and pedagogical grammars and grammar teaching materials for L2 learners should ideally include, based on corpus evidence from both native-speaker and learner corpora. I demonstrate how learner corpora can be used to track the emergence of grammatical features, from the elementary level to advanced, how learners get to grips with new grammar and what we can learn from the statistical output of error-coded corpora. Additionally, we look at how the divide between lexis and grammar becomes progressively blurred and how corpus information can best be used to produce useful grammars and teaching materials for students at different levels. The advanced level in particular is focused on. The lecture is presented within the framework of the English Profile Project (EPP), a large, international, inter-disciplinary project which uses corpora to investigate learner competence at different levels of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).
The study of how learners acquire a second language (SLA) has helped to shape thinking about how to teach the grammar of a second language. There remain, however, a number of controversial issues. This paper considers eight key questions relating to grammar pedagogy in the light of findings from SLA. As such, this article complements Celce-Murcia's (1991) article on grammar teaching in the 25th anniversary issue of TESOL Quarterly, which considered the role of grammar in a communicative curriculum and drew predominantly on a linguistic theory of grammar. These eight questions address whether grammar should be taught and if so what grammar, when, and how. Although SLA does not afford definitive solutions to these questions, it serves the valuable purpose of problematising this aspect of language pedagogy. This article concludes with a statement of my own beliefs about grammar teaching, grounded in my own understanding of SLA.
A survey of research on French as a second language (FSL) education in Canada suggests that French immersion (FI) students enjoy significant linguistic, academic, and cognitive benefits. We organize our summary of the advantages of FI around these three themes, comparing students' proficiency in French and English across various FI programs, and assessing their overall academic achievement. Our review shows that FI programs enable students to develop high levels of proficiency in both French and English, at no cost to their academic success. Cognitive research associates bilingualism with heightened mental flexibility and creative thinking skills, enhanced metalinguistic awareness, and greater communicative sensitivity. Because cognitive benefits are contingent on a bilingual learner's proficiency in both languages, it may be that FI programs, which promote heightened proficiency in both French and English, foster in their students an underlying cognitive advantage.
In this article I demonstrate that the teachability of language is constrained by what the learner is ready to acquire. I set out a series of psychological constraints on teachability and relate these to the 'multidimensional model of SLA', taking a speech processing approch towards the explanation of language acquisition. This article supplies the empirical evidence for these constraints-namely experiments and longitudinal studies-which were available at the time of submission (1985). I take the position that while this research has important implications for 'formal interventions' in the acquisition process, the nature of such interventions do by no means follow from the research on teachability reported on in this article.
A problem facing investigations of implicit and explicit learning is
the lack of valid measures of second language implicit and explicit
knowledge. This paper attempts to establish operational definitions of
these two constructs and reports a psychometric study of a battery of
tests designed to provide relatively independent measures of them. These
tests were (a) an oral imitation test involving grammatical and
ungrammatical sentences, (b) an oral narration test, (c) a timed
grammaticality judgment test (GJT), (d) an untimed GJT with the same
content, and (e) a metalinguistic knowledge test. Tests (a), (b), and (c)
were designed as measures of implicit knowledge, and tests (d) and (e)
were designed as measures of explicit knowledge. All of the tests examined
17 English grammatical structures. A principal component factor analysis
produced two clear factors. This analysis showed that the scores from
tests (a), (b), and (c) loaded on Factor 1, whereas the scores from
ungrammatical sentences in test (d) and total scores from test (e) loaded
on Factor 2. These two factors are interpreted as corresponding to
implicit and explicit knowledge, respectively. A number of secondary
analyses to support this interpretation of the construct validity of the
tests are also reported. a
This chapter examines differences in metalinguistic development
between monolingual and bilingual children in terms of three
subcategories: word awareness, syntactic awareness, and
phonological awareness. In each case, some studies have reported
advantages for bilingual children, but equally, other studies
have found either no difference between the groups, or, in some
cases, monolingual advantages. In the discussion of each of
these areas, the kinds of tasks for which bilingual and monolingual
children perform differently are identified. In none of these
three subcategories of metalinguistic awareness do bilingual
children exhibit a uniform and consistent advantage over
monolinguals. An alternate conception of metalinguistic ability
is proposed in which two cognitive processes, analysis and control,
are directly responsible for task performance. These processes
are involved in all metalinguistic tasks but to different degrees.
Re-examining the results in this way reveals that bilingual
advantages occur reliably on tasks that make high demands on
control but are not evident in tasks that make high demands
on analysis. The implications of this pattern for metalinguistic
ability are considered.
A meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of explicit and implicit instruction on the acquisition of simple and complex grammatical features in English. The target features in the 41 studies contributing to the meta-analysis were categorized as simple or complex based on the number of criteria applied to arrive at the correct target form (Hulstijn & de Graaff, 1994). The instructional treatments were classified as explicit or implicit following Norris and Ortega (2000). The results indicate larger effect sizes for explicit over implicit instruction for simple and complex features. The findings also suggest that explicit instruction positively contributes to learners’ controlled knowledge and spontaneous use of complex and simple forms.
This longitudinal study investigates the development of writing proficiency in English as a foreign language (EFL), in contrast to the development of first language (L1) writing proficiency in Dutch L1, in a sample of almost 400 secondary school students in the Netherlands. Students performed several writing tasks in both languages in three consecutive years. Furthermore, data were collected about students’ metacognitive and linguistic knowledge (grammar, vocabulary, and spelling) and their fluency in lexical retrieval and sentence building (reaction times). Analyses, using structural equation modeling, show that EFL writing was more strongly correlated to linguistic knowledge and linguistic fluency than L1 writing was and that, over the course of the two years investigated, students’ EFL writing proficiency improved to a greater extent than did their L1 writing proficiency. Furthermore, through the modeling of L1 and EFL writing proficiency, a strong relation between the two constructs could be established, with metacognitive knowledge and general fluency mediating this relation. This finding is paralleled by the study of Van Gelderen, Schoonen, Stoel, De Glopper, and Hulstijn (2007) showing a strong relationship between L1 and EFL reading proficiency. Taken together, the findings of these studies call for the inclusion of the constructs of L1 proficiency, linguistic fluency (speed of processing of lexical and grammatical information), and language-general metacognition in theories of the acquisition of L2 proficiency.
This paper reviews studies of teacher cognition in relation to the teaching of grammar in first, second, and foreign language classrooms. Teacher cognition encompasses a range of psychological constructs and these are reflected in the research reviewed here. Thus, in turn, I discuss studies of teachers' declarative knowledge about gram-mar, of their beliefs about teaching grammar, and of their knowledge as expressed through their grammar teaching practices. In addition to highlighting these different perspectives on the study of teacher cognition in grammar teaching, this review high-lights key findings from the research and suggests directions for continuing inquiry in this field.
This study employed (and reports in detail) systematic procedures for research synthesis and meta-analysis to summarize findings from experimental and quasi-experimental investigations into the effectiveness of L2 instruction published between 1980 and 1998. Comparisons of average effect sizes from 49 unique sample studies reporting sufficient data indicated that focused L2 instruction results in large target-oriented gains, that explicit types of instruction are more effective than implicit types, and that Focus on Form and Focus on Forms interventions result in equivalent and large effects. Further findings suggest that the effectiveness of L2 instruction is durable and that the type of outcome measures used in individual studies likely affects the magnitude of observed instructional effectiveness. Generalizability of findings is limited because the L2 type-of-instruction domain has yet to engage in rigorous empirical operationalization and replication of its central research constructs. Changes in research practices are recommended to enhance the future accumulation of knowledge about the effectiveness of L2 instruction.
Data from repeated measures experiments are usually analyzed with conventional ANOVA. Three well-known problems with ANOVA are the sphericity assumption, the design effect (sampling hierarchy), and the requirement for complete designs and data sets. This tutorial explains and demonstrates multi-level modeling (MLM) as an alternative analysis tool for repeated measures data. MLM allows us to estimate variance and covariance components explicitly. MLM does not require sphericity, it takes the sampling hierarchy into account, and it is capable of analyzing incomplete data. A fictitious data set is analyzed with MLM and ANOVA, and analysis results are compared. Moreover, existing data from a repeated measures design are re-analyzed with MLM, to demonstrate its advantages. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that MLM yields higher power than ANOVA, in particular under realistic circumstances. Although technically complex, MLM is recommended as a useful tool for analyzing repeated measures data from speech research.
If, as has been widely claimed, our attitudes and beliefs are reflected in the language we use, it should be possible to gain
some insight into teachers' views of English-language coursebooks from the metaphors they use to describe them. A small collection
of teacher metaphors (and similes), drawn largely from Hong Kong, is presented and discussed. This is then compared with metaphors
supplied by secondary school learners in the same context. The conclusion is drawn that there is value in teachers researching
their learners' beliefs and attitudes—in relation to coursebooks and other aspects of the teaching-learning environment—and
reflecting on and comparing these with their own. Metaphors may be a conveniently economical way of focusing such reflection.
Activate! A2 students' book. Cambridge: Pearson Longman
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De enige echte vernieuwing: Tweetalig onderwijs
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Investigating the effects and effectiveness of L2 instruction
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Of moving targets and chameleons: Why the concept of difficulty is so hard to pin down
- R M Dekeyser
DeKeyser, R. M. (2016). Of moving targets and chameleons: Why the concept of difficulty is so
hard to pin down. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 38(2), 353-363.
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Teaching and learning English grammar: Research findings and future directions
- R Ellis
Ellis, R. (2015). Form-focused approaches to learning, teaching, and researching grammar. In M.
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Research findings and future directions (pp. 194-214). New York, NY: Routledge.
Implicit and explicit instruction in L2 learning: Norris and Ortega (2000) revisited and updated
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learning: Norris and Ortega (2000) revisited and updated. In P. Rebuschat (Ed.), Implicit and
explicit learning of languages (pp. 443-482). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Prioritizing grammar to teach or not to teach
- E Hinkel
Hinkel, E. (2017). Prioritizing grammar to teach or not to teach. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of
research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 369-383). New York, NY: Routledge.
Grammar learning in English and French L2: Students' and teachers' beliefs and perceptions
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- D Simard
Jean, G., & Simard, D. (2011). Grammar learning in English and French L2: Students' and
teachers' beliefs and perceptions. Foreign Language Annals, 44(4), 465-492.
First Meaning then Form: a longitudinal study on the effects of delaying the explicit focus on form for young adolescent EFL learners
- L Piggott
Piggott, L., (2019). First Meaning then Form: a longitudinal study on the effects of delaying the
explicit focus on form for young adolescent EFL learners. Unpublished PhD, Utrecht University,
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More! 1 student's book
- H Puchta
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