Using form-focused tasks to integrate language across the immersion curriculum

Abstract

Abstract This article reports on two form-focused quasi-experimental intervention studies conducted in French immersion classrooms in the Montreal area, each of which involved a different task-based approach that crossed borders either between content areas or between languages. The first study integrated a focus on grammatical gender across 5th-grade students' (10–11 years old) language arts, social studies, and science classes. Students engaged in form-focused tasks that were related to these different content areas and that also drew their attention to noun endings that reliably predict grammatical gender. The content focus then provided contexts for practice in associating gender attribution with noun endings. The second study integrated a linguistic focus on derivational morphology that crossed borders between the English and French classes of 2nd-grade students (7–8 years old). Their teachers co-designed and implemented biliteracy tasks associated with the French and English editions of illustrated storybooks that they read aloud in their respective French and English classes. The storybooks and related tasks were employed to highlight cross-lingual connections between languages and to enhance students' awareness of derivational morphology. In addition to reporting the positive outcomes of both interventions, the article addresses some of the challenges that arise when tasks are extended across languages and content areas.