“Very easy, it’s an English class, therefore they should not rely on a French text”

In the context of additional language (AL) learning, teachers need to focus on the development of language proficiency as well as on high-level literacy skills, for example, comprehending and evaluating information and creating new meaning. From a plurilingual perspective, AL learners’ first language (L1) is conceputalised as a useful tool in the development of target language proficiency; however, limited information exists concerning AL teachers’ beliefs towards the use of the L1 for high-level literacy instruction despite its potential utility for complex skill development. The aim of the present exploratory study was to examine the beliefs of in-service teachers of English as an additional language (EAL) working in the Quebec primary and secondary school system in francophone Canada regarding plurilingual approaches for classroom literacy practices and to uncover the factors that influence their beliefs. An online survey was distributed to in-service EAL teachers (N = 57) working in the province of Quebec, Canada. Findings suggest that teachers believe that it is most beneficial to adopt a monolingual lens to literacy instruction, a belief that denies learners’ use of their L1 and this, in a bilingual country. Implications for teacher education programs that challenge a monolingual lens are explored.

Self-efficacy beliefs among non-specialist teachers in primary English education

Although the teaching of English to primary school children has been rapidly growing in many English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) countries around the world, a shortage of specialist teachers remains a persistent challenge. Consequently, non-specialists, such as homeroom teachers initially trained as generalists, are more often required to teach English. The present study, focusing on 304 non-specialist teachers serving in Japan’s public primary schools, was designed to explore their perceived self-efficacy for teaching English, and to examine the impact of teacher characteristics (i.e., their perceived English proficiency, English-teaching experience, and appraisals of collaboration with native English-speaking teachers) on their level of self-efficacy. A multiple regression analysis revealed that the collaboration variable was more influential than the proficiency variable and that there was no significant relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy and teaching experience. Moreover, integration of these results and teachers’ comments in the open-ended question suggested that they functioned most effectively in student engagement by playing roles unique to non-specialist teachers and that they perceived team teaching to be more beneficial in classroom management than solo teaching. Implications for in-service training are discussed to support non-specialist teachers in primary English education.

Give me a second chance

Collaborative writing (CW) and task repetition have been claimed to aid language acquisition. Students produce better texts when writing with a peer and their drafts improve if they write the same composition twice (same task repetition, STR). However, little is known about young learners, about the effects of combining both constructs and, finally, about a more common type of repetition in language lessons: repeating the same procedure with different content (procedural task repetition, PTR). This study analyses the effects of CW (vs. individual writing) and of PTR (vs. STR). To do so, the writings of 59 Spanish young learners (aged 11) of English divided into four groups were analysed. Two of these groups (N = 9, N = 10) wrote a composition individually while two (N = 20, N = 20) wrote a composition in pairs. A week later, one individual (N = 9) and one collaborative group (N = 20) wrote the same composition again (STR) while the other individual (N = 10) and collaborative (N = 20) groups wrote a new composition following the same procedure (PTR). Unlike findings from adult learners, our students’ drafts show no differences that could be attributed to the collaboration. However, some improvements upon repetition were hinted at, with students in the STR group obtaining greater holistic rates.

A theoretically-grounded classification of EFL children’s formulation strategies in collaborative writing

Research into collaborative writing (CW) has drawn on the notion of “languaging”, operationalized as language-related episodes (LREs), to account for the way learners pool their ideational and linguistic resources, give and receive immediate feedback on language and, as a result, deepen their awareness of meaning-form mappings. LREs in CW have been examined from different perspectives, including the degree of noticing shown by learners, the extent of their involvement in the interaction, the knowledge sources drawn upon, or the cognitive processes deployed to solve their linguistic problems. Yet, in spite of the alleged “added value” that strategic behaviour brings to learners’ reflection on language, available research on CW has not yet looked at LREs from the perspective of formulation strategies, i.e., the conscious mental actions engaged in by writers to address the problems involved in the transformation of ideas into written language. In an attempt to address this gap, and to extend available, but sill limited, CW research with children, the interactions of 30 young EFL pairs while writing two narrative picture-story texts were analysed by means of a reconceptualization of LREs as problem-solving strategy clusters, i.e., chains of strategies activated and applied to the writer’s linguistic knowledge in the course of the activity. The outcome of these analyses is a theoretically-motivated and pedagogically useful, child-based taxonomy of collaborative formulation strategies, which can help raise awareness of the mechanisms involved in solving language-related problems in early EFL writing, thereby promoting more tailored writing instruction and learners’ self-regulation. The taxonomy is also presented as a point of departure for future research.

Language-related episodes by young CLIL learners

Task modality has been found to affect the production, nature and resolution of Language Related Episodes (LREs). However, a substantial number of investigations have been conducted with adult learners (i.e. García Mayo & Azkarai, 2016; Niu, 2009; Payant & Kim, 2019), except for García Mayo and Imaz Agirre (2019) with child learners. Besides, there is a lack of investigations examining the incorporation of LREs in the final output of oral and written tasks. In addition, previous studies have not controlled for either the different levels of accuracy that both task modalities demand as a consequence of their on-line and off-line nature or the opportunity for revising the output equally in both modalities. This paper compiles the findings from various studies conducted with the same cohorts of 5th and 6th primary school learners that have overcome the aforementioned methodological limitations, all of which will make possible a more comprehensive understanding of modality effects in terms of LRE production. In addition, it tackles the relationship between task-modality and variables such as the use of previously known languages, pair dynamics and pairing method (gender, proficiency and self-selection). Likewise, it adds to the scant research on young learners’ attitudes towards the tasks administered.

Effects of proficiency and collaborative work on child EFL individual dictogloss writing

Collaborative writing has been traditionally studied in terms of language-related episodes (LREs), which have been shown to be influenced by learner proficiency. Yet, the impact of collaboration on the written product has received less attention, especially regarding child EFL learners. Our study analyzes the individual reconstructions produced by 30 Spanish-Basque EFL children (aged 11–12) before and after (T1 and T3) they completed a collaborative dictogloss (T2). From the analysis of their LREs at T2, we predicted that certain areas (grammar and mechanics) could reflect more changes at T3 than others. Moreover, we wanted to determine whether those changes were moderated by the learners’ and their partners’ proficiency at T2: low (LP) or high (HP). Text-based and rubric measurements showed that only grammatical complexity improved in children’s individual writing from T1 to T3. Regarding proficiency, LP children performed significantly worse than their HP counterparts at T1 and T3 in most writing dimensions. Partner proficiency only influenced accuracy, and unexpectedly, working with an LP partner did not appear to have a detrimental effect. Our findings stress the need to carry out longitudinal studies to further determine the role of collaboration in L2 writing and knowledge development.

What is an ecosystem?

In Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) contexts, students are expected to express disciplinary knowledge in a second/foreign language. One construct that has proven useful for the identification and realization of language functions in disciplinary knowledge is Dalton-Puffer’s (2013) model of cognitive discourse functions (CDFs). Additionally, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) has already been proven useful for distinguishing lexico-grammatical features that characterise different CDFs in CLIL students’ productions (e.g., Nashaat-Sobhy & Llinares, 2020; Evnitskaya & Dalton-Puffer, 2020). In this article, we use SFL to analyse the oral and written realisations of the CDF Define by 6th grade students participating in a CLIL program in Madrid, Spain. A total of 83 students responded to the same prompt (on science) in writing (in the form of a blog) as well as orally (in the form of an interview). In the oral interviews the co-construction of definitions by the students with the interviewer (researcher) and another peer are explored using the notion of Legitimation Code Theory and the concept of semantic waves (Maton, 2013). The analysis of students’ definitions is also related to primary CLIL teachers’ evaluations using comparative judgement.