Intra-individual variation in developmental trajectories of L2 French listening: eight case studies from a CDST perspective

The present study tracks the development of L2 listening of eight learners of French in an English secondary school over a period of five years, from when they begin secondary school, aged 11, until the end of statutory language learning aged 14. Longitudinal research into L2 listening is scant, and what there is, is largely centred around intervention studies, which in turn largely concern themselves with the role of strategy use in L2 listening. The time period is usually no more than a matter of months, and the studies tend to have a maximum of three data collection points – usually pretest, posttest, and sometimes delayed posttest. By contrast, the present study aims to take a much more detailed approach to the developmental trajectory of L2 listening. At seven time points in each academic year, data are collected on the development of participants’ listening comprehension, as well as on the subsystems that contribute to listening success: ie lexical and syntactic knowledge, segmentation skills, strategy use, motivation and working memory. Semi-structured interviews also take place at each time point. Data collection began in September 2018. Data analysis will shed light on the both intra- and inter-individual variation during the language acquisition process. It probes the subsystems’ role in listening development: to what extent do various patterns of interaction between subsystems help or hinder listening development, and at what stage in proficiency? It will also examine the relationship between the various subsystems and listening comprehension scores overall, to build a picture of the range of variability which might occur, and to understand the implications of this variability in the classroom. The eight case studies form part of a larger cohort of 105 participants: outcomes from the group study will be compared with the individuals' trajectories.