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Time and the Distribution of Time in L2 Instruction
Author(s) -
COLLINS LAURA,
HALTER RANDALL H.,
LIGHTBOWN PATSY M.,
SPADA NINA
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
tesol quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.737
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1545-7249
pISSN - 0039-8322
DOI - 10.2307/3587881
Subject(s) - distribution (mathematics) , mathematics education , psychology , linguistics , sociology , mathematics , philosophy , mathematical analysis
In the French primary schools of Quebec, increased popularity in experimental programs that provide young Francophone learners with intensive ESL instruction has been accompanied by increased variation in the way the instructional time is distributed. In a massed program, students complete the regular curriculum in French in 5 months and spend the remaining months learning English. In a distributed program, the intensive ESL instruction is spread across the full 10 months of the school year. Within the cognitive psychology and general education literature, there is substantial evidence in favour of distributed over massed practice. There has been less research in the language program evaluation literature contrasting the learning outcomes of students receiving similar amounts of L2 exposure in different distributions, but the findings suggest an advantage for massed learning. The present study compared the learning outcomes in two versions of the massed program and one version of the distributed program of students of the same age and L1, with similar amounts of prior exposure to English. Pretest and posttest measures from 700 students revealed superior outcomes for the massed learning conditions. The interpretation of the findings takes into account selection criteria, overall instructional time, and instructional practices in the different ESL programs.