Maximizing Young Learners’ Input: An Intervention Program

Abstract

This study reports on a year-long intervention based on comprehension practice of input-rich materials. It was inspired by an innovative program in Canada in which primary school francophone children learned English as a second language (ESL) through simultaneous reading and listening. In our study the participants are a class of 10- to 11-year-old students (N = 28) who spent 60% of their EFL instruction time at school in a reading-while-listening program. The program involved independent simultaneous reading and listening practice using graded readers and storybooks of their own choice. The goals were to examine how students experienced the reading/listening sessions and to compare learners’ perceptions of the program, as well as their linguistic gains, with that of a comparison group who received only teacher-led instruction. Instruments included oral and written language tests, self-reported data, and observations. Results indicate that students in the intervention group showed more positive attitudes toward English language learning and progressed at least as much as the students in the comparison group, in spite of having had much less teacher-led instruction time than the latter.