Incidental Language Learning in Foreign Language Content Courses

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which 40 students enrolled in upper level foreign language literary/cultural studies content courses showed evidence of incidental language learning over the course of a semester. Students completed a cloze passage and provided both writing and speaking samples at the beginning and end of the semester. In addition, they completed questionnaires related to their goals and perceived development, and instructors were interviewed and observed at various intervals throughout the semester. Instructors' focus was primarily on the content; focus on language was secondary and dealt with incidentally. Some positive evidence of language learning was found, but was mostly limited to students' writing. Speaking abilities, on the other hand, showed little evidence of significant improvement, and global proficiency, as measured by the cloze test, improved in some cases but not in others. Thus, there is some evidence for incidental language learning, but the question remains whether more could have been accomplished. It is suggested that an approach that more intentionally integrates content and language may meet the needs of a greater number of learners and maximize the potential for more language development.

Form-focused instruction (FFI) and language features attended to during content-based instruction (CBI) lessons at a southeastern Mexican university

“…teachers concentrated on the content of the lessons. These results mirror what has been found in other research where CB teachers see the attention to language as of secondary importance (Airey, 2012;Arias and Izquierdo, 2015;Arnó-Marcía andMancho-Barés, 2015, Costa, 2012;Dalton-Puffer;Rodgers, 2015). What is more, many of the students' inaccuracies in the target language went unaddressed by the two instructors (e.g.…”

“…What is more, many of the students' inaccuracies in the target language went unaddressed by the two instructors (e.g. Lyster, 2007;Rodgers, 2006;Rodgers, 2015;Swain, 1996;Zyzik and Polio, 2008). To exemplify this, below there is an extract taken from the teacher of the Teaching Aids course, lesson 3.…”

“…Various and different CBI shortcomings sources have been reported, such as lack of interaction with native speakers of the target language and lack of feedback; nonetheless, the most common and frequent source of shortcoming that researchers have identified is that CBI teachers tend to pay more attention to meaning than to form (Airey, 2012;Burger and Chrétien, 2001;Costa, 2012;Lyster, 2007;Rodgers, 2015;Zyzik and Polio, 2008). This overwhelming attention to meaning negatively impact students' leaning as attested by the different researches conducted in varied learning contexts.…”

“…Research in different contexts (Mexico: Arias and Izquierdo, 2015; USA: Rodgers, 2015;Zyzik and Polio, 2008;Canada: Lyster, 2007;Swain, 1996;Hong Kong: Hoare and Kong, 2008;Finland: Södegard, 2008) reveals that teachers pay little or no attention to language, which means that very limited or no FFI instruction is implemented during CBI lessons. This scarce implementation of FFI might generate negative impacts on students' language development; this also might explain some of the students' language problems commonly reported in CBI research (Ranta and Lyster, 2007;Swain, 1996).…”

Youth Participatory Action Research in World Language Classrooms

“…Supporting these findings, Rodgers () compared student gain scores on assessments of both content knowledge and functional linguistic abilities as the result of university‐level geography courses that were taught in the L2; he found that students made significant improvements in both areas. More recently, Rodgers () researched foreign language students’ incidental language learning. He found that in content courses taught in the L2, students demonstrated increases both on multiple cloze tests and in their productive writing skills.…”