PhonBank English L2 Seine-Marne Corpus
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Heather Hilton
University of Lyon
heather.hilton@univ-lyon2.fr
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| Participants: | 54 |
| Type of Study: | cross-secctional |
| Location: | France |
| Media type: | audio |
| DOI: | doi:10.21415/GJD3-2W04 |
Citation information
HILTON, H.E. (2017) Individual differences and English L2 learning in two primary classrooms in France. In J. Enever & E. Lundgren (eds.), Researching the Complexity of Early Language Learning in Instructed Contexts. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 127-144.
In accordance with TalkBank rules, any use of data from this corpus
must be accompanied by at least one of the above references.
Project Description
The data included in PhonBank for the Seine & Marne Primary English project was obtained as part of a larger project, following two primary-school classes in France (one first-grade, one third-grade) during their first year of foreign-language English learning. This was an exploratory project, designed to assemble a wide-ranging data set, reflecting not only some aspects of English-language acquisition during the year, but also methodology used in the children’s classrooms, and possible effects of individual variables in the language-learning process.
Broad Project Research questions
Which types of teaching methods are used by primary English L2 teachers (in France)?
Are there methodological differences in the teaching techniques used with non-readers (CP/first grade class) and readers (CE2/third grade class)?
What acquisitional pathways can be observed in these beginning classrooms, and can we take individual variables into account in our consideration of these?
Can we identify possible specificities of classroom language learning at early primary school levels? And (if found) formulate pedagogical recommendations based on these specificities?
Phonological Research questions
Using PHON transcriptions of the production data recorded during the project, can we trace phonological acquisition in these young learners? (individual characteristics, group characteristics) Do we detect age effects (six-year-old non-reading beginners vs. eight-year-old reading beginners)? Can we take into account the phonological models provided by teachers and teaching support materials?
Location
The data was collected from two primary English classrooms, two schools in the same school group (regroupement scolaire), in the Seine & Marne region East of Paris. There were no socio-economic differences between schools, which cater to same families/children, at different years of the primary curriculum.
Participants (n=54)
25 six-year-olds (15 female, 10 male; all born in 2006)
29 eight-year-olds (16 female, 13 male; all born in 2004)
Of the 54 participants, 47 were monolingual French, 7 were bilingual (French + other home language).
Notes: None of the bilingual children has English as a first or second language. Other languages involved Arabic (3 children), Armenian, Italian, Portuguese, and “Creole” (variety unknown).
Calendar
The research team visited both schools during the same three weeks of the school year: one week in early December 2012, mid-February 2013 and late May 2013; long-term follow-up visits were carried out in May 2014 and June 2015. During the visits, all English lessons were filmed, and the children completed psychometric (December) and English tasks (February, May).
Transcription data
Elicited from two production tasks aimed at measuring emerging English knowledge and skills. The tasks reflecting course content. They were not identical between Time 1 (February) and Time 2 (May), but were identical between Time 2 (May 2013) and Time 3 (May 2014).
1. Production Task: (designed for project, based on content from previously-filmed lessons); in one-on-one session with examiner (laptop computer and headphones with mike, administered just after two Listening Tasks), child sees an array of pictures (”Prod 1”, February 2013) or a set of pictures (“Prod 2”, May 2013), and is invited to say what s/he wants to about these. For “Prod 3” (May 2014, one year later), an array of objects was used.
2. Imitation Task: (designed for project, based on content from previously-filmed lessons); in same one-on-one session with examiner (following Production Task), child hears a short English utterance (neutral North American accent), to be repeated. “Imit 1” administered in February 2013 (17 items in CP, 16 items in CE2); “Imit 2” administered in May 2013 (12 items, with 6 utterances from “Imit 1”). “Imit 3” (same 12 items as “Imit 2”) administered to some project participants one year later, in May 2014. See Production Tasks Excel file for task stimuli.
Notes: Incomplete data set for the six-year olds in February 2013 (“Imit 1”, “Prod 1”), due to a technical error (sound files for 7 children unexploitable) and incomplete data set for “Prod 3” (May 2014): one second-grade teacher was unwilling to participate in project.
Other project data
- Emergent English reception skill: Auditory discrimination task (AD1 in December 2012, AD2 in May 2013); Listening task (Listening1 in February 2013, Listening 2 in May 2013, Listening 3 (same as Listening 2) in May 2014). (Same AD task, T1 & T2.)
- Individual variables: At the beginning of the project, all participants completed a battery of psychometric tests, measuring attention, memory span, phonological memory, metalinguistic skill, L1 vocabulary knowledge and listening skill, and motivation for English learning (Hilton 2017).
- All English lessons were filmed during the three week-long 2012-2013 visits, for a total of 14 lessons (approximately 17 hours of video footage). These have been transcribed and annotated with the EXMERaLDA software program, and analyzed for examples of classroom interactions and the teaching methodology used with the children in their classrooms (Hilton 2017).
- Each of the two participating teachers was individually interviewed, to determine her perceptions of primary L2 English teaching. (NOTE: major differences in phonological competence depending on the confidence of the children’s teachers.)
Research Team (at the time of data collection and processing)
- Heather Hilton (Professeur, Language Acquisition & Teaching), Universités Paris 8 et Lyon 2, project director
- Ewa Lenart (Maître de conférences, Language Acquisition), Université Paris 8, project co-director
- Lucile Cadet (Maître de conférences, Language Teaching), Université Paris 8
- Nadine Herry-Bénit (Maître de conférences, English Phonetics), Université Paris 8
- Takeki Kamiyama (Maître de conférences, English Phonetics), Université Paris 8
- Frank Jamet (Maître de conférences, Psychology), Université de Cergy-Pontoise
- Anne Pegaz (Docteur, French Language Teaching)
- Carine Royer (Maître de conférences, Psychology), Université de Cergy-Pontoise
- Patricia Sapina (Conseillère pédagogique, langues vivantes), Inspection Seine & Marne
- Nawel Zoghlami (Doctorante, didactique de l’anglais), Université Paris 8
- Corrine Sauvé (Undergraduate research assistant), Memorial University
Research funding
The Seine-Marne Primary English project was funded by a grant for innovative research from the Conseil scientifique of Université Paris 8 (2012, 2013), and partially funded by a grant for joint projects by the Division de la Recherche of Université Lumière Lyon 2 (2015).
How to cite the Seine-Marne Primary English corpus
Hilton, Heather E., Yvan Rose, Naouel Zoghlami-Terrien, Nadine Herry-Bénit, Ewa Lenart (2019). Seine & Marne Primary English Production Corpus. (Universités Paris 8 and Lyon 2, France). https://phon.talkbank.org/access/Biling/Seine-Marne.html.