Emma Marsden

Single Group, Pre- and Post-Test Research Designs: Some Methodological Concerns.

This article provides two illustrations of some of the factors that can influence findings from pre- and post-test research designs in evaluation studies, including regression to the mean (RTM), maturation, history and test effects. The first illustration involves a re-analysis of data from a study by Marsden (2004), in which pre-test scores are plotted against gain scores to demonstrate RTM effects. The second illustration is a methodological review of single group, pre- and post-test research designs (pre-experiments) that evaluate causal relationships between intervention and outcome. Re-analysis of Marsden’s prior data shows that learners with higher baseline scores consistently made smaller gains than those with lower baseline scores, demonstrating that RTM is clearly observable in single group, pre-post test designs. Our review found that 13% of the sample of 490 articles were evaluation studies. Of these evaluation studies, about half used an experimental design. However, a quarter used a single group, pre-post test design, and researchers using these designs did not mention possible RTM effects in their explanations, although other explanatory factors were mentioned. We conclude by describing how using experimental or quasi-experimental designs would have enabled researchers to explain their findings more accurately, and to draw more useful implications for pedagogy.

Learning Novel Morphology: The Role of Meaning and Orientation of Attention at Initial Exposure.

A large body of research has shown that suffixes—both inflectional and derivational—can be primed with adult native speakers, which informs our understanding of storage and access to morphology in mature systems. However, this line of research has not yet been conducted from an acquisition perspective: Little is known about whether or not representations of suffixes are formed after very little exposure to new morphology and, if so, about the nature of those representations or about the influence of attentional orientation and meaning at this initial stage. The three experiments reported here begin to address this gap by investigating the nature of suffixal representations following exposure to a small regular system of suffixed words. The experiment used crossmodal priming of recognition memory judgments to probe morphological representation. Although the lack of priming suggested that abstract morphological representations were not yet established, recognition judgments showed a clear sensitivity to sublexical morphemic units. The pattern of results was unaffected by the orientation of attention or the assignation of meaning to the words or suffixes during training. Offline tests of learning stem and suffix meanings also showed that both were learned to some extent even when attention was not oriented to their meanings and that the resulting knowledge was partially implicit. Thus, there was evidence of sensitivity to both the forms and meanings of the suffixes but not at the level required to support crossmodal priming. We argue that the reason for this may lie in the episodic nature of the knowledge gained after brief exposure.

Vocabulary use during conversation: a cross-sectional study of development from year 9 to year 13 among learners of Spanish and French

The aim of this paper is to describe vocabulary use during semi-spontaneous oral production among instructed learners of French and Spanish at two different stages in the UK educational system: year 9 (near beginners) and year 13 (approximately low-intermediates). The paper mainly focuses on comparing lexical diversity (range or variety of vocabulary used) across languages and across years, including analyses of different word classes. The data are taken from two publicly available learner language oral corpora. These corpora are described briefly, before the details and results of the current study are presented. It is hoped that the oral task, the measures and the results will provide points of reference for teachers, given that there are few, if any, such points of reference currently available.

The acquisition of functional categories in early French second language grammars: the use of finite and non-finite verbs in negative contexts

This cross-sectional study of first language (L1) English adolescents learning French as a second language (L2) uses their development of negatives in relation to finite and non-finite verbs to investigate the status and nature of functional categories in these learners’ emerging grammars. Analysing oral data from elicited production tasks from instructed learners, it provides evidence for a lack of functional categories in the Initial State and the earliest L2 grammars (Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1996; Hawkins, 2001). However, the results from the study also indicate that the functional category I (or T) then emerges reasonably rapidly. The pattern of development of negation and finite and non-finite verbs in these learners’ grammars also suggests that feature values are in place for the functional categories once they are projected, as learners consistently raise the verb. The learners do use root infinitives but the properties of these root infinitives differ to those found in L1 acquisition (Pierce, 1992; Wexler, 1994; 1998), thus supporting Wexler’s maturational account of Optional Infinitives in L1 acquisition. Additionally, the rare occurrence of raised non-finite verbs would indicate that there is a problem with the realization of surface morphology in accordance with the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis of Prévost and White (2000a) rather than an impairment in the grammar (Meisel, 1997; Hawkins, 2000).

Can Educational Experiments both Test a Theory and Inform Practice

This article feeds into debate about the feasibility and usefulness of educational experiments by discussing methodological issues arising out of a study which sought causal links between teaching and learning of one aspect of French as a foreign language. The study involved two small-scale experiments which tested a hypothesis regarding the learning of second language grammar within a particular theoretical, and its related pedagogical, framework (Input Processing and Processing Instruction respectively), and has been described in full elsewhere. The current article uses that example to suggest some circumstances (contextual, methodological and theoretical) within which educational experiments may be able to both test a learning theory and inform educational practice. It is argued that despite the complexities and limits of small-scale educational experiments, an experimental design which combined a range of methods was able to generate new and useful (in a range of senses) substantive knowledge.

L1 explicit instruction can improve L2 online and offline performance.

This study investigated the effectiveness of providing L1 explicit information (EI) with practice for making more accurate and faster interpretations of L2 French Imparfait (IMP). Two treatments were investigated: (a) “L2-only,” providing EI about the L2 with L2 interpretation practice, and (b) “L2+L1,” providing the exact same L2-only treatment and including EI about the L1 (English) with practice interpreting L1 features that are equivalent to the IMP. Fifty L2 French learners were randomly assigned to either L2-only, L2+L1, or a control group. Online (self-paced reading) and offline (context-sentence matching) measures from pretest, posttest, and delayed posttests showed that providing additional L1 EI and practice improved not only offline L2 accuracy, but also the speed of online L2 processing. To our knowledge, this makes original and significant contributions about the nature of EI with practice and the role of the L1 (Tolentino & Tokowicz, 2014 ), and it extends a recent line of research examining EI effects in online sentence processing (Andringa & Curcic, 2015 ).

The IRIS repository: Advancing research practice and methodology

Syntactic priming in second language corpus data – testing an experimental paradigm in corpus data

Input-Based Grammar Pedagogy: A Comparison of Two Possibilities.

This article presents arguments for using listening and reading activities as an option for techniques in grammar pedagogy. It describes two possible approaches: Processing Instruction (PI) and Enriched Input (EI), and examples of their key features are included in the appendices. The article goes on to report on a classroom based quasi-experiment which compared their effectiveness for the learning of French verb inflections amongst 13- to 14-year-olds from two different secondary schools in England. The key feature of PI is that it comprises activities which systematically force learners to interpret the meaning of formal features in the input, rarely seen in published material and classroom activities. In this study, EI provided brief awareness-raising strategies followed by a flood of the target features. The study suggested that PI may indeed constitute a viable and effective option for grammar pedagogy for learners who are starting to develop a verb inflection system. These results were clear in the class from school 2 but more ‘fuzzy’ from school 1, demonstrating the importance of taking contextual factors into account when gathering evidence regarding practice.

Teachers’ views on recognising and using home languages in predominantly monolingual primary schools

ABSTRACT The use of home languages has previously been advocated in highly multilingual UK classrooms. However, drawing on the home languages and cultural insight of children who use English as an Additional Language (EAL) may also have important social and academic benefits in contexts where monolingualism is the norm. Conducted in a small local authority in England with low numbers of children who use EAL, this study investigated (1) primary teachers’ views on implementing language awareness activities, using pupils who speak languages other than English as a linguistic and cultural resource, via interviews and questionnaires and (2) the amount and nature of references made to home languages during classroom observations. Although the teachers did not refer to or use home languages on a day-to-day basis, they generally showed willingness to consider implementing certain activities which incorporated them. However, largely, the teachers had not previously contemplated such practice. They did not reference any academic benefits to promoting linguistic diversity but were more aware of the potential social benefits. They also lacked confidence in particular areas (e.g. linguistic knowledge) as well as showing a strong awareness of issues such as the importance of English.

ONLINE AND OFFLINE EFFECTS OF L1 PRACTICE IN L2 GRAMMAR LEARNING

This study partially replicates McManus and Marsden ( 2017 ), who found that providing L1 explicit information (EI) plus task-essential practice led L2 learners to make more accurate and faster interpretations of French morphosyntax. The current study removed the original study’s L1 EI component to examine the role of the L1 practice. This design tested whether providing L1 task-essential practice only (alongside a core treatment of L2 EI plus L2 practice) resulted in similar online and offline learning gains compared to the original study’s L1 EI plus L1 practice. We used the same online and offline tests, with a similar population of English-speaking learners of L2 French (n = 19). For accuracy and speed of online and offline L2 processing, the findings suggest that additional L1 practice without L1 EI was no more beneficial than L2 EI plus L2 practice alone, indicating that the original study’s combination of additional L1 EI with L1 practice appeared to contribute to previously observed learning benefits.