Peter Bimmel

Effects of reading strategy Instruction in secondary education - a review of intervention studies.

The present article will review six intervention studies designed to establish the effects of reading strategy instruction in the native language in regular secondary education. The aim of the review is to identify characteristics of reading strategy instruction programmes likely to determine the effectiveness of such programmes with this target group. A model is used in which the following features are distinguished: strategic reading activities included in the instructional programme, components of the instructional programme (orientation/explanation, practice/application, awareness-raising activities) and effects (on knowledge about strategies, command of strategic reading activity, and/or reading comprehension). The results of this review tend to support the notion that — if the aim is to achieve positive effects on standardised reading comprehension tests — awareness-raising activities, in combination with orientation/explanation about reading strategies and practice in the execution of strategic reading activities, could be a crucial element in reading strategy instruction in regular secondary education.

Focus on form through task repetition in TBLT

Because there has been little research on focus on form during the post-task phase in task-based language teaching, this experimental study investigates the effects of task repetition after having directed learners’ attention to form during the main task. The study comprises two interventions, where each consisted of a task with a focus on a particular language structure. Forty-eight ninth-grade students learning German as a foreign language were randomly assigned to two conditions: one group repeated a similar task (R); the other group did not (NR). The first intervention targeted the German dative case after a preposition; the second German comparatives. Pretests, immediate and delayed posttests measured metalinguistic knowledge, written and oral accuracy as well as oral fluency. Results showed that on written accuracy and metalinguistic knowledge, the R condition outperformed the NR condition on both structures. No significant differences between conditions were found on oral accuracy and fluency.

Focus on language versus content in the pre-task: Effects of guided peer-video model observations on task performance:

The present experimental study examined whether a different focus during a pre-task planning observation task affects learners’ subsequent oral task performance. Forty-eight ninth-grade students learning German as a foreign language were randomly assigned to two different planning conditions: video observations with a focus on language (FonL) and video observations with a focus on content (FonC). With a communicative oral task we measured the effects on oral task performance, in terms of attempted (accurate) use of the target structure and complexity, in terms of number of words, subordination and coordination. In addition we investigated whether there was a trade-off between attempted (accurate) use of the target structure and complexity. Results showed that the focus of the observations at the pre-task stage did indeed lead to different outcomes: students in the language condition used the grammatical target structure more often and more accurately, whereas students of the content condition generated more coordinate and subordinate clauses. Trade-offs were found between attempted (accurate) use of the target structure and the use of subordinate clauses. These findings imply that, depending on the purposes of the lesson, the observation of peer-model videos with different planning foci can be effectively used to promote (accurate) use of targeted grammatical structures and improve complexity during subsequent task performance.