Pedagogical Linguistics - Online First

This exploratory study aims to investigate the effectiveness of group dictation in primary school children with a refugee background. More specifically, running dictation was employed in the teaching of two grammatical phenomena in L2 Greek, tense and gender agreement. Two studies were conducted to investigate each grammatical structure separately. Each study consisted of a pre-test that investigated the pupils’ performance on the grammatical structure, the teaching intervention via running dictation, and a post-test that explored its efficiency on pupils’ accuracy. All pupils that participated in the studies were enrolled in formal Greek education and their L1s were Arabic, Farsi or Kurdish. According to the results from both studies, the children’s post-intervention performance did not improve significantly. However, the pupils’ accuracy on some of the grammatical forms tested as well as their error patterns indicated that running dictation helped the pupils notice the target grammatical phenomena and thus become more aware of them. Moreover, some data showed that older pupils benefited more from the target-activity than younger ones. Therefore, the present study provides evidence that running dictation may have a positive qualitative rather than quantitative impact on learners’ grammatical development and is dependent on the pupils’ age.

This study investigates the relationship between (extra)linguistic variables and proficiency in a foreign language. Based on 1,403 secondary school students in Germany (age 12/13 and 14/15), we assess whether proficiency in German, if applicable also Russian or Turkish, cognitive ability, school type, gender, socio-economic status, self-concept, motivation, and self-assessment function differently in predicting English language proficiency when monolingual German learners of English (n = 849) are compared to their bilingual peers (Russian-German: n = 236; Turkish-German: n = 318). Two comprehensive structural equation models capture the multitude of factors influencing foreign language acquisition and contribute to the discussion on multilingual advantages or effects. The results reveal that most variables are statistically significant, but the models function comparably across the three language groups with only minor contrasts regarding effect sizes. We submit that the three language groups are more similar than different and that the heritage languages Russian and Turkish add comparatively little to predicting English language proficiency.

This article details how introductory linguistics courses can increase student engagement and learning through a project-based approach, whereby the students first study the subfields of linguistics with a view to complete the main project of the course, namely to construct a novel language. I provide information from a semester-long course with specific project-based activities teachers could utilize in their classes. I also thoroughly examine the constructed language projects based on 33 student submissions in an introductory linguistics course in the US. The analysis indicates a high level of engagement and creativity by the students in creating a distinct orthography, phonetic, morphological, and syntactic rules and semantic properties for their constructed languages. The results from a 20-item questionnaire and student exit interviews indicate that the project-based approach adopted in the completion of their constructed languages proved effective in (a) improving student motivation and engagement; (b) helping students apply the knowledge of the material to carry out linguistic analysis; (c) enhancing students’ language learning skills; (d) encouraging them to study additional foreign languages; and finally (e) promoting linguistic diversity. Hence, as an innovative and effective method still in its infancy, project-based learning should be more widely implemented in linguistics instruction.

Starting from general problems of teaching grammar in the subject of German language as well as from basic assumptions of so-called ‘more-is-more’ didactics, we discuss demands to continue teaching grammar after the eighth grade (in Germany, that is the eighth year of school). We then present a quasi-experimental study which was carried out in grades 8 to 12 with the same participants for the purpose of finding out whether providing additional and repeated grammar teaching in the subject of German language even after the eighth grade results in improved and explicit long-term German grammar knowledge. At least at one measurement time point during the study, N = 821 students from six different schools were participating. As a crucial result it turned out that additional and repeated grammar teaching resulted in an improvement in explicit grammar knowledge both during individual grades and across grades. These study results support the demands of ‘more-is-more’ didactics, they however require long-term assessment concerning a number of problems, which are discussed.