Abstract

The present paper will discuss results in the progression and regression of language production and language reception in school context in a multilingual group of Spanish learners. The learners were provided with a twelve-hour-a-week intensive course for twice a period of two weeks respectively: intensive course 1 took place at the beginning of the semester, intensive course 2 two months later. The break of eight weeks in between was due to a pragmatic-organisational decision and depended on school-internal reasons. The two months without any input in the target language together with the two intensive instruction periods allow an analysis of learner language production and target language comprehension in order to get to know whether the development of production and reception follows the same pathway. Data were drawn at the beginning and at the end of both intensive courses. Data referring to morphosyntactical (Pienemann 1998) and pragmatic aspects (House 1996, Wurnig 1998) in learner language production were elicited by oral dialogues between the learners followed by an interview with the researcher. Data concerning the receptive skills of listening and reading were elicited by standardised tests which lead to the certificate examination D.E.L.E. (Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera, Baralo et al. 1994). Results will be discussed in the framework of language acquisition and language attrition research.

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