On a four-year bachelor course at Inholland University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, additional modern language was offered to first-year students studying at three locations. Since each location only had a few students and there was only one language teacher available, across the three locations, lessons were given by the teacher in a ‘hybrid’ classrooms. The teacher was at one location with some students while students from the other two locations would join via live video link. The focus was to develop speaking and listening skills through in-classroom discussion that took place via the video link. Short video news segments in the language were watched live in class. This lead to discussion and practicing the language. Learning support materials were available in the form of a grammar book with an online self-test learning environment. The research group conducted research on this original and creative solution to teaching smaller groups since much could be learned from a practical, didactic and organisational perspective. Several organisational issues influenced the course. And from a pedagogical perspective, this case supported findings from the literature that it is complicated to engage with students live in a classroom while also communicating with students at other locations via a video screen.
Introduction The CEFR offers a framework for language teaching, learning and assessment for L2 learners. Importantly, the CEFR draws on a learner’s communicative language competence rather than linguistic competence (e.g. vocabulary, grammar). As such, the implementation of the CEFR in our four years bachelor program Teacher of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) caused a shift in didactic approach from grammar-based to communication-centered. It has been acknowledged that didactic approaches associated with the CEFR are scarcely documented (Figueras, 2012) and the effectiveness on learner outcomes have not been investigated systematically. Moreover, for many languages the levels of the CEFR are not supported by empirical evidence from L2 learner data (Hulstijn, 2007). Purpose We will i) describe our communication-centered approach in detail and iii) present some preliminary findings on the effectiveness of this approach on student’s outcomes. Method We followed four student cohorts longitudinally: students in the first cohort (n=14) were taught in a grammar-based curriculum, students in the second (n=6), third (n=9) and fourth (n=14) cohort in a communication-centered curriculum. Data involved production (interviews) videos that are transcribed using ELAN. Results Comparing students in their first and second year, results show that students who followed a communication-based curriculum show more grammatical variability as compared to students who followed a grammar-based curriculum. Conclusions Interestingly, the communication-centered approach stimulates the development of linguistic competence. We attempt to fit the empirical evidence of L2 learners within the CEFR-levels. References Figueras, N. (2012). The impact of the CEFR. ELT Journal, 66, 477 – 485. Hulstijn, J. (2007). The shaky ground beneath the CEFR: quantitave and qualitative dimensions of language proficiency. The Modern Language Journal, 91, 663 – 667.
In L1 grammar teaching, teachers often struggle with the students’ conceptual understanding of the subject matter. Frequently, students do not acquire an in-depth understanding of grammar, and they seem generally incapable of reasoning about grammatical problems. Some scholars have argued that an in-depth understanding of grammar requires making connections between concepts from traditional grammar and underlying metaconcepts from linguistic theory. In the current study, we evaluate an intervention aiming to do this, following up on a previous study that found a significant effect for such an approach in university students of Dutch Language and Literature (d = 0.62). In the current study, 119 Dutch secondary school students’ grammatical reasonings (N=684) were evaluated by language teachers, teacher educators and linguists pre and post intervention using comparative judgement. Results indicate that the intervention significantly boosted the students’ ability to reason grammatically (d = 0.46), and that many students can reason based on linguistic metaconcepts. The study also shows that reasoning based on explicit underlying linguistic metaconcepts and on explicit concepts from traditional grammar is more favored by teachers and (educational) linguists than reasoning without explicit (meta)concepts. However, some students show signs of incomplete acquisition of the metaconcepts. The paper discusses explanations for this incomplete acquisition.
