The present article describes a study of second‐language (ESL and FSL) acquisition in which Anglophone and Francophone university students took Introduction to Psychology / Introduction à la psychologie in their second language in a special, sheltered class taught by regular psychology professors. The questions serving as a basis for this study are: (1) Did the experimental subjects successfully master the psychology subject matter? (2) Were there measurable improvements in the second‐language proficiency of the experimental subjects? (3) Did the self‐confidence of the experimental subjects increase as reflected in their self‐reported gains in proficiency, second‐language use anxiety and intention to use the second language outside the classroom? Results provide an affirmative answer to the first two questions. In addition, comparison with control groups in language and psychology suggest that sheltered classes are at least as effective as traditional psychology and language classes, and sometimes even better. Results did not provide a definitive answer to the third question although experimental subjects consistently perceived improvements in their second‐language skills and those in the FSL study showed a decrease in French use anxiety.
This article reviews the empirical and pedagogical literature on the concept of “difficulty” (or “ease”) in second language (L2) reading at the university or adult level and discusses it within the framework of schema theory. A traditional view of difficulty/ease is explained as consisting of two factors: (1) Language (grammar and vocabulary) and (2) Text Length. A modern view of difficulty/ease is then proposed via four hypotheses: (1) The first Primary Ease Factor in L2 reading is background knowledge; (2) Signalling becomes the Primary Ease Factor in L2 reading when background knowledge is not useful for accessing content schemata; (3) Other factors being equal, the degree of signalling determines the degree of accessibility of a text for the L2 reader; and (4) Other factors being equal, Language, Discourse, and Length are of secondary importance — after Background Knowledge and Signalling — for accessing a text by L2 readers.
Two approaches to foreign‐language instruction were compared in an experiment in which American children learned Japanese. In the “structural approach,” materials were sequenced in order of increased difficulty of grammatical and lexical forms. In the “situational approach,” the same materials were presented in the form of meaningful dialogues; sequencing did not depend upon the relative difficulty of grammatical and lexical items.
The principal findings of the experiment were: (1) that the situational approach produced results equal to or better than those of the structural approach, (2) that the situational approach produced significantly better results among students of high language aptitude and intelligence; and (3) that there was no significant difference between approaches among students of lower aptitude and intelligence.
A major implication of this study for foreign language teaching is that in elementary courses for children, it is unnecessary to sequence content materials according to the linguistic difficulty of grammatical and lexical forms. In classes which are heterogeneous or of generally high intelligence and language aptitude, sequencing by situations is more beneficial than sequencing according to relative linguistic difficulty.
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