Randall H. Halter

THE LANGUAGE CONTACT PROFILE

Efforts to gather data of various sorts—demographics, language-learning history, contact with native speakers, use of the language in the field—as they relate to participants in SLA research studies are inherent to understanding more about language acquisition and use. Scholars frequently develop questionnaires of their own, which are rarely shared widely in the profession. Consequently, much time and effort is invested in reinventing the process of gathering the types of data that are commonly needed. This research was funded in part by a grant to Barbara F. Freed from the Council for International Educational Exchange (New York), in part by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to Norman Segalowitz, and in part by a grant from the Deans Office, Faculty of Arts and Science, at Concordia University to Segalowitz.

Time and the Distribution of Time in L2 Instruction

LAURA COLLINSUniversity of VictoriaRANDALL H. HALTERConcordia UniversityPATSY M. LIGHTBOWNConcordia UniversityNINA SPADAMcGill UniversityIn the French primary schools of Quebec, increased popularity inexperimental programs that provide young Francophone learners withintensive ESL instruction has been accompanied by increased variationin the way the instructional time is distributed. In a massed program,students complete the regular curriculum in French in 5 months andspend the remaining months learning English. In a distributed pro-gram, the intensive ESL instruction is spread across the full 10 monthsof the school year.Within the cognitive psychology and general education literature,there is substantial evidence in favour of distributed over massedpractice. There has been less research in the language programevaluation literature contrasting the learning outcomes of studentsreceiving similar amounts of L2 exposure in different distributions, butthe findings suggest an advantage for massed learning. The presentstudy compared the learning outcomes in two versions of the massedprogram and one version of the distributed program of students of thesame age and L1, with similar amounts of prior exposure to English.Pretest and posttest measures from 700 students revealed superioroutcomes for the massed learning conditions. The interpretation of thefindings takes into account selection criteria, overall instructional time,and instructional practices in the different ESL programs.

Child-adult differences in second-language phonological learning: the role of cross-language similarity.

This study evaluated whether age effects on second language (L2) speech learning derive from changes in how the native language (L1) and L2 sound systems interact. According to the “interaction hypothesis” (IH), the older the L2 learner, the less likely the learner is able to establish new vowel categories needed for accurate L2 vowel production and perception because, with age, L1 vowel categories become more likely to perceptually encompass neighboring L2 vowels. These IH predictions were evaluated in two experiments involving 64 native Korean- and English-speaking children and adults. Experiment 1 determined, as predicted, that the Korean children were less likely than the Korean adults to perceive L2 vowels as instances of a single L1 vowel category. Experiment 2 showed that the Korean children surpassed the Korean adults in production of certain vowels but equaled them in vowel perception. These findings, which partially support the IH, are discussed in relation to L2 speech learning.

Comprehension-Based Practice: The Development of L2 Pronunciation in a Listening and Reading Program.

We report the results of a 2-year longitudinal comparison of grade 3 and grade 4 English-as-a-second-language learners in an experimental, comprehension-based program and those in a regular (i.e., more typical) language learning program. The goal was to examine the extent to which sustained, long-term comprehension practice in both listening and reading—in the virtual absence of any speaking—can help develop learners’ second language (L2) pronunciation. We analyzed learners’ sentences from an elicited imitation task using several accuracy and fluency measures as well as listener ratings of accentedness, comprehensibility, and fluency. We found no differences between the two programs at the end of year 1. However, at the end of year 2, there were some differences—namely, in the listener ratings of fluency and comprehensibility—that favored learners in the regular program. These findings highlight the beneficial effects of comprehension practice for the development of L2 pronunciation but also point to some potential limits of this practice.