New Brunswick Experiment - post 4

Although there are a number of other questions which we could look at, such as the validity of research methods in SLA in particular, and in the social sciences in general, it would perhaps be best to get down to looking in some detail at Lightbown's paper. The paper is entitled 'Can They Do It Themselves? A Comprehension-Based ESL Course for Young Children', and was published in 'Comprehension-based Second Language Teaching', by Courchêne, Glidden, St. John and Thérien (eds.), University of Ottawa Press, 1992.

Lightbown was asked to evaluate an ambitious new programme initiated by the Ministry of Education of New Brunswick, in which francophone children in French-language schools learned English through the use of individual tape- recorders allied to written texts. The children listen to the tapes and read the texts during daily 30 minute sessions. The material is chosen freely by the children themselves, who may flit from text to text, or, alternatively, remain with one text, reading it through several times. During the sessions, there is no oral practice or interaction. These programmes begin in grade 3 when children are about 8 years old, and continue through to grade 6. Lightbown's evaluation concerned children who had reached grade 5.

Lightbown was at first reluctant to comply with the Ministry's request, for reasons which she develops in her paper. However, she finally decided to do so, particularly as this permitted her to investigate the role of comprehensible input in foreign language teaching (Lightbown tells us that francophone children in New Brunswick have very little contact with English outside the classroom)

After three years, Lightbown was able to test three different kinds of student. First, there were those who had followed the experimental programme for three years. Next, there were those who had begun with a regular programme, but whose parents had asked that they be included in the experimental group on entering grade 4. Finally, there were those who had followed a regular, traditional programme during the three years.

A sample of these students were submitted to a set of tests; one of which directly tested the regular program, another of which tested the experimental program - although here there were considerable difficulties, given the fact that the children had themselves chosen their material - and two program neutral tests. As might be expected, the children following the regular program did better on the first test than did those who had followed the experimental program. In the second test, both groups did equally well - Lightbown suggests that this is because of the difficulty they had knowing what to test - but on the two neutral tests, the experimental children did better than the children following the regular program. In particular, the experimental children performed much better than the regular children on a Picture Description task - a semi-guided, oral production activity. They produced more words, they were more varied in their use of structures, and used more verbs. As Lightbown points out, this is intriguing, given that at no time were these learners called upon to produce spoken English.

In general, the children liked the experience. They looked forward to their English lesson. Children in the control groups were also positive in their attitudes to learning English. Most interesting is that of those who had experienced both the experimental and the regular programmes, 61% said they preferred the experimental programme, 28% preferred the regular programme, and 11% liked both. (It will be seen that all of these results compare very favourably with the attitudes towards FL shown by the young English children reported on by Burstall).

When the children were asked what they did when they did not understand something, almost all the children in the regular group reported that they asked the teacher, while those in the experimental group said that they would work it out for themselves in one way or another. Lightbown concludes that the experimental children had a greater degree of autonomy in their approach to learning the language.

To sum up, a first look at the study suggests that learners of primary school age can 'do it themselves' to a considerable extent. Compared with children who follow a more traditional mode of learning, they have a larger vocabulary, a more flexible grasp of syntax, and greater self- direction. From an organizational point of view, this approach does little to disrupt the normal relationship between the classroom teacher and her class, does not require the hiring or the training of specialist teachers, and avoids the question of whether language teaching needs smaller groups.

I will pause here for any comments people may have to make, before returning to the questions I raised in the earlier postings to see whether the study can further our discussion of those points. I would urge anyone who is interested to look at the paper cited, and also to consult the full report, which can be found in :

Lightbown. P.M., 'Evaluation of ESL Learning in Regular and Experimental Programs in Four New Brunswick School Districts, Vol. 1, 1985-6/1986/7. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education of New Brunswick, 1988

Lightbown P.M. and R.H. Halter, same title, Vol. 2, 1987-8 (1989)

Timothy Mason

Post 5 is here