The Long-Term Retention of French by Dutch Students

Weltens, Bert; van, Theo; Schils, Erik

doi:10.1017/s0272263100000619

Cited by 24 publications

(39 citation statements)

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“…Previous research on FL attrition includes works by Cohen (1989), Gardner (1985, Nakuma (1997), Starren (1998), Weltens, van Els andSchils (1989), Weltens and Grendel (1993).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foreign language attrition

Schmid

Mehotcheva²

2012

DuJAL

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The present contribution discusses recent developments and future directions in the attrition of instructed foreign languages, arguing for a distinction between this type of attrition and attrition involving second languages acquired implicitly in an immersion setting. An overview of the history of research in the field and the most prominent findings is provided, followed by a discussion of theoretical models and methodologically problematic issues. We conclude by outlining some future directions for the field. IntroductionIt is usually taken for granted that a foreign language will be forgotten once it is no longer used or studied, regardless of whether it is a school/university acquired language or a language learned abroad. Empirical findings, however, have so far failed to validate this assumption of the inevitability of language attrition. Some studies suggest individual variation in the susceptibility to foreign language attrition, although it is not yet clear what factors cause or contribute to linguistic resilience.While interest in the phenomenon of language attrition can be traced back to as far as the 16 th century (See Berko-Gleason, 1982), it was not until the 1980s that the decrease of linguistic skills in healthy individuals over time began attracting the attention of modern linguistics. In the early years, different terms were used to refer to the same phenomenon, amongst which language attrition, language loss and language regression. However, with the development of the field it became evident that this variation caused confusion. Consequently, language loss was suggested as a cover/general term for any type of decline in linguistic skills, both at individual or group level, encompassing both language shift, an intergenerational and societal phenomenon usually associated with diglossia situations, and language attrition, an intragenerational and individual phenomenon (de Bot & Weltens, 1995:151; de Bot, 1996:579; Hansen, 2001:61). With some minor exceptions, language regression is now mainly used to denote decay in the linguistic ability of previously normally developing infants, a symptom usually associated with medical conditions such as autism or degenerative disorders of the brain (Hyltenstam & Viberg, 1994) Within the field of language attrition, a further distinction is made between L1 attrition or the attrition of a native language associated with immigrants, as in the studies of de Bot and Clyne (1994), Gürel (2004), Hulsen (2000, Dostert (2007), Opitz (2004), Seliger and Vago (1991), Schmid (2002), Schmid, Köpke, Keijzer and Weilemar (2004), Yağmur, de Bot and Kurzillus (1999), and L2/foreign language (FL) attrition, the attrition of languages acquired later in life.Traditionally, no distinction is made between L2 and FL attrition, but we shall argue that there are substantial differences between languages that are learned by instruction through explicit processes, where the learner focusses on the input, on rules etc., and naturalistically acquired L2s (for the ...

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“…Previous research on FL attrition includes works by Cohen (1989), Gardner (1985, Nakuma (1997), Starren (1998), Weltens, van Els andSchils (1989), Weltens and Grendel (1993).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foreign language attrition

Schmid

Mehotcheva²

2012

DuJAL

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“…Regarding maintenance classes in private institutes, Yashiro (1992) indicated that these classes help returnees to maintain their foreign language; however, the returnees feel free in building communication with foreign students. In a similar study, which aimed at exploring longterm retention of French by Dutch students, Weltens, Van Els, and Schils (1989) observed an increase in proficiency, despite the fact that subjects had very low contact with French in the intervening years. They related this increase in proficiency to "general cognitive maturation, further academic training, and continued learning of other foreign languages" (Weltens, Van Els, & Schils, 1989, p. 214).…”

Section: Exploring Efl Learners' Experience Of Foreign Language Profimentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Some scholars explored the evidence of attrition phenomenon in different parts of language knowledge (Berman & Olshtain, 2015;Tomiyama, 2000). On the other hand, others focused on factors and techniques that contribute to language proficiency development (Arevalo, 2010;Bahrick, 1984;Garza, 1991;Huang & Eskey, 2000;Markham, 1999;Rott, 1999;Schneider, Healy, & Bourne, 2002;Snow, Padilia, & Campbell, 1988;Valmori, 2014;Weltens, Van Els, & Schils, 1989;Yashiro, 1992). None of these studies, however, explored and theorized EFL learners' experience of proficiency maintenance.…”

Section: Exploring Efl Learners' Experience Of Foreign Language Profimentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring EFL Learners’ Experience of Foreign Language Proficiency Maintenance: A Phenomenological Study

Ostovar-Namaghi

Rahmanian

2017

Int. J. Appl. Linguist. Engl. Lit.

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Having developed foreign language proficiency, a large number of EFL learners experience some degrees of foreign language loss later in life since English has no social function in many EFL contexts including Iran. However, there are some language learners who actively maintain and develop their proficiency long after they leave language education programs. This study aims at uncovering techniques applied by this minority group in maintaining their foreign language proficiency. Participants who were willing to share their experience of proficiency maintenance were selected through purposive and snowball sampling and verbalizations of their experience were then analyzed in line with phenomenology research design. Abstraction and thematic analysis of the participants' experiences revealed that they actively create conditions that are conducive to proficiency maintenance such as reviewing previously learned materials, watching target language movies and actively manipulating subtitles, reading for pleasure, attending discussion groups, and using internet to communicate in the target language. While proficiency loss and attrition is the norm in EFL contexts, maintenance is an exception; hence, the findings of this study have clear and immediate implications for both foreign language teachers and learners since they provide them with down-to-earth, data-driven techniques of proficiency maintenance.

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“…It is particularly worth mentioning that under the guidance of these theories, lexical attrition study yielded many fruits ranged from early introspective study to later series of quantitative analysis study. Some researchers concentrated on the differences of attrition in lexical and other language system, such as Anderden(1982), Bahrick(1984), Mooncraft & Gardner (1987), Weltens (1989), Altenberg (1991), Weltens & Grendel (1993) …”

Section: A Foreign Language Attrition Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overview on Language Attrition Theory

He¹

2016

Advances in Computer Science Research

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Abstract-Language attrition refers to the loss of any language or any portion of a language by an individual or a speech community. It is often considered as the reverse process of language acquisition. Based on related literature analysis on language attrition at home and abroad, the paper gives an overview on the theoretical system of language attrition and deeply explores nine factors of affecting language attrition, that is, time of attrition, foreign language level before attrition, contact with attrition language, age, language acquisition mode, social emotional factors, reading and writing ability, target language and gender. Through the analysis of these nine factors, the author hopes to have a further understanding to language attrition, clarify the development direction and provides a theoretical basis for effective foreign language teaching. Keywords-overview; language attrition; language attrition theory; affecting factors; language teachingLanguage attrition plays an important role in the study of second language acquisition and has indispensable relation with it. Language acquisition contains not only learning and gains, but also loss and attrition; not only rising and development, but also fossilization and deterioration. In some sense, language attrition is the reverse process of language acquisition and an important factor restricting foreign language learning ability.About the definition of language attrition, the mostly accepted one in the field of the study of language attrition is defined by Freed in his book [1] . The study of language attrition is paid more and more attention at abroad but still remains a relatively new research field at home. Either the amount of the first-hand research papers on it or the second-hand ones are relatively few. Based on collecting and sorting to the papers of language attrition research published at home and abroad during these years, the paper makes a systematical overview and analysis on language attrition theory, aiming to give inspiration to the study of language attrition.

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The Long-Term Retention of French by Dutch Students

Cited by 24 publications

References 10 publications

Foreign language attrition

Foreign language attrition

Exploring EFL Learners’ Experience of Foreign Language Proficiency Maintenance: A Phenomenological Study

Overview on Language Attrition Theory

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