This study investigated the impact on French vocabulary development for school-aged learners who studied either French poems or semi-authentic, factual texts. The effect of the teaching approach used with each text-type was also considered. Findings will be discussed in relation to classroom practice for using literary and other authentic texts.
In many educational contexts, the use of literary texts is an important part of the language curriculum. This is equally true of England, the context for the present study. Nevertheless, the impact of using such materials on school-aged learners' language development has received little research attention, as most studies have focused on adults (Paran, 2008). Furthermore, almost no studies directly compare the impact on learning of literary texts with more factual or less authentic texts (Ellis & Shintani, 2014). Finally, while there is much agreement that how such texts are used is crucial, debate continues around the most appropriate form of deployment. Contrasting perspectives include advocating on the one hand studying literature from a purely linguistic perspective, as a vehicle for language practice; on the other hand, as an opportunity to prompt an emotional and personal response from learners who engage with the texts more as literature per se (Bobkina & Dominguez, 2014). The relative benefits for vocabulary development of each of these two approaches, termed 'functional' and 'creative' respectively, are considered in this presentation, which reports on a study of approximately 433 learners of French aged 14. Learners in six classes studied French poems, while another seven classes studied French factual, semi-authentic texts. Linguistic content, difficulty level and topic area were matched across the two text-types. Teachers in each text condition then employed 'functional' and 'creative' methods of exploitation within a counter-balanced design. Assessment of learners' vocabulary size through yes/no tests (X-Lex, Meara & Milton, 2003) and of vocabulary items included in the texts at three time points indicated large gains for learners across text-types, and an advantage for employing a 'creative' teaching approach. There were however important interactions between text-type, teaching approach and order of teaching approach. The implications of these findings for classroom practice will be discussed.
