Elementary French immersion (FI) language arts teachers often organize instruction around small learning groups. Students rotate through learning stations/centres and work independently with their peers on L2 literacy skills. This study examined how principles of task-based language teaching (TBLT) can be used and/or adapted to further support…

This study compares the frequency and distribution of different types of corrective feedback (CF) (recasts, prompts and explicit correction) and learner uptake in 43 hours of classroom interaction at the 4th-5th grade level across three instructional settings: (1) two content and language integrated learning (CLIL) classrooms in Spain with English…

The defining feature of immersion language learning is the omnipresent pressure to communicate in the second language (L2), even as incipient skills are being acquired. This study uses the focused essay technique to investigate ambivalence about communicating among adolescent French immersion students (12-14 years of age). Students described…

In this paper, both a cognitive and a sociocultural theoretical perspective are used to bring together findings from two studies that investigated the effects of instruction designed to enhance the potentially positive effect of peer interaction on L2 development. Despite differences between the studies' learning contexts, participants' age, and…

This study investigates the use of writing portfolios in improving the accuracy of French immersion students' written French. It emerged from regularly observed notable and repeated errors in many of the author's students' writing (entitled fossilized errors due their resistance to correction). This study reaffirms that students of French…

Most research on language awareness in a second language (L2) has been carried out with adult learners. This research presents data showing that pedagogical techniques can be devised enabling children as young as 8 to develop metalinguistic awareness of their emerging L2 system. Building on existing work by Canadian researchers, this…

Presents a study of the relationships among error types, feedback types, and immediate learner repair in four French immersion classrooms at the elementary level. The database is drawn from transcripts of audiotape recordings of 13 French language-arts lessons and 14 subject-matter lessons totaling 18.3 hours and including 921 error sequences.…

Descriptive studies in four elementary school French immersion classrooms investigated the negotiation of form in classroom discourse. Four interactional moves that encourage peer- and self-repair and draw attention to non-target output were examined. Found that recasts, the most common form of corrective feedback, can not lead to peer- or…

Investigated specific patterns for a reactive approach to form-focused instruction: corrective feedback and its relationship to error types and immediate learner repair. Data is drawn from transcripts of audio recordings made in four French immersion classrooms at the elementary level, totaling 18.3 hours and including 921 error sequences.…

This paper reports similarities and differences in teachers' corrective feedback and learners' uptake across instructional settings. Four communicative classroom settings--French Immersion, Canada ESL, New Zealand ESL and Korean EFL--were examined using Lyster and Ranta's taxonomy of teachers' corrective feedback moves and learner uptake. The…

Three essays on second-language instruction are presented. One describes a letter exchange between teachers as a means of exploring and understanding classroom and instructional issues; another (in French) describes a teacher's reflective examination of the immersion teaching experience; and a third reports on a classroom study of the…

Focuses on research addressing how to integrate content and language teaching, with specific reference to studies conducted in French immersion classrooms. Findings indicate that teachers should structure activities to incorporate a focus on form into content teaching through teacher-led instruction and collaborative tasks with peers. (21…

Examines aspects of communicative classroom discourse that may affect the potential of recasts to be noticed as negative evidence by young second-language learners. The database comprises transcripts of over 18 hours of interaction recorded during 27 lessons in four immersion classrooms at the primary level. (Author/JL)

Examines the problems associated with interlanguage in French immersion and how teachers can use the writing process to help students develop the target language. It is suggested that language can be mediated through conferencing sessions, and in so doing, propel students into their zone of proximal development. (15 references) (Author/CK)

Reports on a study that monitored and corrected the writing of bilingual Fransaskois students and immersion graduates in the same class. The study's objectives were to determine whether francophones and anglophones made similar or different mistakes and whether the two groups could be taught together without prejudice. Both groups made similar…