Browsing by Subject "English as a Foreign Language"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Cohesion in the Narrative Writing of Young EFL Learners: Correct and Incorrect Use of Local Cohesive Ties
    (The Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies (AEDEAN), 2021-06-28) Férez Mora, Pedro Antonio; Coyle, Yvette; Solís Becerra, Juan Antonio; Didáctica de la Lengua y la Literatura
    This study examines the correct and incorrect use of local cohesive ties and local cohesion errors in the written narratives of eleven- to twelve-year-old Spanish learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at different proficiency levels. The study was carried out with pairs who collaboratively wrote a narrative text in response to a picture prompt. The young learners’ written texts were examined to identify their correct and incorrect use of four categories: lexical, referential, conjunctive and temporal cohesion. The results show that higher and lower proficiency learners are significantly different in their use of the causal conjunction because, personal pronouns and noun phrases containing possessive, definite, indefinite and zero determiners. The two groups also differ in their incorrect use of pronouns, simple verb forms and noun phrases containing definite, indefinite and zero determiners. Attention is drawn to the need to explore the diversity in young learners’ use of cohesion and some pedagogical implications are drawn.
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    Lexical availability in CLIL : differences in language of instruction.
    (Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones., 2024) Geoghegan, Leah
    Abstract: Within the context of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), vocabulary acquisition is of central importance. However, while CLIL is increasingly being implemented throughout Spain, there remains a clear preference, both in practice and research, for using English over other languages such as French. This study thus investigates the token production of Spanish students taking both English and French CLIL classes by means of a lexical availability task. It aims to determine if there are quantitative differences between the learners’ language level and token production in English and French, and whether these differences exist across grades. Results indicate that learners have higher proficiency and produce more words in English, and that CLIL instruction has a clear impact on learners’ production across grades. The results are of key interest to multilingual CLIL educators seeking to make the most of vocabulary gains in multiple languages.
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    Young EFL learners collaboratively writing a dialogue during a regular classroom lesson
    (Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2023) Kos, Tomas
    A growing body of research has explored collaborative writing (CW) among young learners. Nevertheless, studies have mainly focused on tasks such as the dictogloss, which is rather uncommon in regular classroom teaching and has neglected activities that are more common. In addition, research has focused on languagerelated episodes (LREs) without considering other important episodes including those that involve the teacher. Finally, only one study has explored to what extent the decisions made within LREs transfer into the written product. With these research gaps in mind, the present study examined CW of 12 pairs composed of 10 to 11- year-old learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) who jointly wrote a role-play. Drawing on audio recordings of pair work interactions and documentary analysis of students’ written work, the study has found that in addition to LREs, students frequently engaged in content-related and activity-related episodes with the teacher’s involvement being rather limited. Despite the teacher’s presence, a high proportion of LREs was resolved incorrectly or left unresolved. Nearly all correctly and incorrectly resolved LREs were also incorporated into the jointly written role-play. Students focused predominantly on the language targeted by the activity (lexical phrases) and attended to other language aspects minimally.