Integrating Formal and Functional Approaches to Language Teaching in French Immersion: An Experimental Study

Abstract

This experimental study was designed to evaluate the effect on French language proficiency of an integrated formal, analytic and functional, communicative approach (experiential) to second‐language teaching in the immersion classroom. The impetus for the study arises from previous research indicating that immersion children show persistent weaknesses in their grammatical skills despite the fluent, functional proficiency they achieve in their second language. The experimental materials, which were custom‐designed for our study, highlight form‐function relations, promote noticing, encourage metalin‐guistic awareness, and provide opportunities for language practice and thus relate to some of the theoretical issues that Rod Ellis (this volume) has indicated are important in SLA in the 90s.This classroom‐based study on the conditional is one of a series of studies undertaken in Canadian French immersion to investigate the effectiveness of form‐focused instruction in classrooms (see Swain, 2000). The results of our study, which was conducted in grade 7 early immersion, showed that the Experimental group performed significantly higher in writing than the Control group, in both the post‐ and the follow‐up testing. Although this was not found for speaking, an examination of the individual class data revealed greater and more consistent growth in speaking for the Experimental than for the Control classes, suggesting that they benefited somewhat from the experi‐ mental treatment in this domain as well. Although Ellis (this volume) notes that research on form‐focused instruc‐ tion in the 90s has tended to split pedagogy from theory, the immersion research in this area does not seem t o reflect this shift. In a recent article, Swain (2000) reviews the French Immersion (FI) studies and summarizes their re‐ sults as follows: “Overall, the set of experiments conducted in FI classes suggest that there is value in focusing on language form through the use of pre‐planned curriculum materials in the context of content‐based language learn‐ ing” (Swain, 2000, p. 205). Her reference to curriculum materials and to the specific context of content‐based lan‐ guage learning should signal to the reader the orientation t o pedagogical considerations that characterize this research.As Ellis notes, hybrid research using both experimental and qualitative methods is becoming more common in SLA. Recently, the experimental materials in our study were implemented in a grade 8 immersion classroom, and the children's collaborative language activity was observed by a researcher working from a sociocultural theoretical per‐ spective (Spielman‐Davidson, 2000). The uptake of our research by a researcher working in another paradigm introduces another kind of hybridity that we hope will also shed further light on questions in form‐focused instruction and lead to appropriate changes in pedagogy and in the design of immersion curricula.