writing

The Role of Grammar in the New 2024 GCSE MFL Exam: Can One Still Achieve a Grade 7 with Weak Grammar?

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) Uncategorized , , , ,

Introduction

With the introduction of the new GCSE Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) curriculum in 2024, students and teachers alike have been considering how grammar influences the final grade, since many students in their classes cannot cope with the high volume of grammar required for the Higher Tier papers. Grammar has traditionally played a crucial role in language learning, as it underpins sentence structure, verb conjugation, and communication accuracy. However, the revised GCSE assessment model balances the evaluation of grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and receptive skills (Listening and Reading).

One of the questions I get asked the most in workshops about the new GCSE is: “Can one still achieve a Grade 7 in the new GCSE MFL exam if I prioritise vocabulary and fluent communication and my students are not great a grammar ?” This article explores the extent to which grammar impacts total marks, strategies for students who struggle with grammar, and why vocabulary, fluency, and receptive skills are just as—if not more—important for success.

The Role of Grammar in Each GCSE MFL Skill

Grammar plays a different role in each skill area of the exam. While it is explicitly assessed in the Speaking and Writing papers, its impact in Listening and Reading is more indirect. Below is a detailed breakdown of how grammar contributes to the total marks in each skill area.

Table 1: Grammar’s Impact on GCSE MFL Marks in Each Skill

Skill AreaTotal Marks AvailableDirect or Indirect Grammar Impact?Estimated Grammar Contribution to Final Marks
Listening50 marks (25% of GCSE)Indirect – Students must recognize tenses and structures in spoken passages.~5-10% (minimal)
Reading50 marks (25% of GCSE)Indirect – Grammar knowledge helps in understanding text nuances.~5-10% (minimal)
Speaking50 marks (25% of GCSE)Direct – Grammatical accuracy is assessed in responses and pronunciation.~20% (moderate)
Writing60 marks (25% of GCSE)Direct – Grammar is explicitly assessed in written tasks.~20-25% (high)

How Can a Student with Weak Grammar Still Achieve a Grade 7?

Achieving a Grade 7 in the new 2024 GCSE MFL exam requires a balanced performance across all four skill areas (Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing). While grammar plays a role in Speaking and Writing, its influence is lower in Listening and Reading, which together account for 50% of the total marks. This means that a student who struggles with grammar can still achieve a Grade 7 by excelling in comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary use.

In Listening and Reading, understanding meaning is more important than grammatical accuracy. These skills primarily assess a student’s ability to identify key words, interpret meaning from context, and recognise common linguistic patterns. Since grammar is not directly tested, a student can compensate for weaknesses in grammatical accuracy by focusing on developing a strong vocabulary base and inference skills. Recognising chunks of language—ready-made phrases and expressions commonly used by native speakers—can significantly enhance comprehension, allowing students to predict meaning even when they do not understand every word.

In Speaking, fluency and the ability to communicate ideas naturally are crucial. One effective way to improve fluency, even with weaker grammar, is by memorising and using chunks of language. These include common sentence starters, opinion phrases, linking expressions, and question forms. By internalising and regularly using set phrases such as “Je pense que…” (I think that…), “Ce que j’aime, c’est…” (What I like is…), or “D’un autre côté…” (On the other hand…), students can avoid hesitation, speak more confidently, and reduce the likelihood of grammatical errors. Furthermore, demonstrating good pronunciation, using intonation appropriately, and self-correcting errors when necessary all contribute positively to the final score.

In Writing, while grammar is assessed explicitly, clarity and coherence remain key factors in achieving a high mark. Even if a student’s grammatical knowledge is not perfect, using well-structured and logically connected ideas, applying a range of vocabulary, and ensuring accurate spelling can still lead to a strong performance. Employing pre-learned chunks of language helps students write more fluently and accurately, reducing the risk of mistakes. For example, memorising set phrases for expressing opinions, structuring arguments, or making comparisons allows students to produce well-formed sentences with minimal effort. A clear, well-organised response is often more effective than a grammatically complex but error-filled one.

When doing the Foundation Tier paper, there is an additional opportunity to gain marks in a multiple-choice grammar section in the Writing paper. Even if grammar is a weak area, this section allows students to use logical reasoning and elimination techniques to secure some marks.

Conclusion: The Importance of Vocabulary, Fluency, and Receptive Skills

Ultimately, grammar alone does not determine a student’s final grade. A Grade 7 can still be achieved if the student performs well in Listening, Reading, fluency in Speaking, and clarity in Writing, even with some grammatical inaccuracies.

A strong vocabulary, confidence in communication, and good comprehension skills are just as important as grammatical accuracy in achieving success in the GCSE MFL exam. Remember: fluent vocabulary knowledge is what teacher need to prioritise the most, as it is the strongest determinant of success across all four skills.

Using chunks of language effectively as we teach students to do in EPI enhances fluency, increases accuracy, and provides students with the tools to communicate naturally, making it an essential strategy for those who struggle with grammar.

Key Takeaways:

  • Grammar is most important in Writing and Speaking, where it accounts for around 20-25% of marks.
  • Listening and Reading skills require good comprehension but do not have direct grammar assessments, meaning weaker grammar does not automatically lower one’s score.
  • Overall, grammar accounts for about 20% of total marks, meaning 80% of the final grade depends on other factors like vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

The NEW GCSE FRENCH LISTENING WORKBOOK – listening-to-learn meets listening-to-test

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) Uncategorized , , ,

Introduction

The book I have always wanted to write has finally been written and about to come out. It is a very innovative book in that it embeds listening-to-learn in an input-to-output sequence which applies my PIRCO (Pre-listening, In-listening, Review, Consolidation, Output) sequence framework, in a bid to make the learning of the new gcse vocabulary occur organically and multimodally, i.e. through listening, reading and writing. Speaking tasks were not included because we are going to create a book exclusively devoted to it, which will complement this one.

Alongside the listening-to-learn sequences, teachers will also find comprehension tasks based on the new GCSE exam format. The icing on the cake for those who want to engage students in a bit of listening-to-test too.

Co-authored with Ronan Jezequel, this workbook is not a an EPI book, even though EPI aficionados will recognize quite a few EPI classics in it such as: Faulty transcript, Spot the intruder, Break the flow, Faulty Translation, Gapped translations, Spot the silent endings; Partial dictations; Jigsaw listening; One of three, etc.. It can be used by any language educators teaching towards the new GCSE or simply aiming to teach the most frequent 2000 words in the French language.

Why did we write it?

This listening workbook was created to address a major gap in the currently available instructional resources for the new GCSE (starting in 2026). While such resources include practice tasks similar to those expected in the exam papers, they exhibit several significant shortcomings:

  • Lack of an explicit focus on vocabulary instruction through listening – Yet, success in listening comprehension primarily (70%) depends on vocabulary recognition. Most current textbooks fail to provide the 10-15 meaningful aural encounters necessary for the human brain to acquire new vocabulary.
  • No deliberate focus on listening micro-skills – Listening fluency depends on the rapid execution of key micro-skills such as phonological processing, segmenting, lexical retrieval, morphological and syntactic processing, and meaning- and discourse-building.
  • Lack of logically sequenced input-to-output activities – Aural activities should be part of a structured input-to-output continuum where receptive skills scaffold the development of speaking and writing.
  • Insufficient pre-listening preparation – Students should be introduced to key vocabulary from the listening text beforehand, as research shows this significantly enhances comprehension and builds self-efficacy—an essential factor when transitioning from KS3 to KS4.
  • No meaningful post-listening reflection – Reflection on comprehension difficulties and strategies to overcome them fosters metacognitive awareness, which research suggests improves listening performance.
  • Lack of post-listening consolidation and output activities – Research indicates that post-listening tasks are crucial to ensuring vocabulary retention. Moreover, such activities mitigate the ’empty hands’ effect, a sense of frustration students often experience after completing listening comprehension tasks (Conti and Smith, 2019).
  • Failure to integrate listening-to-learn with listening-to-test tasks – Learners who receive extensive listening-to-learn practice are far more likely to succeed in exam-style comprehension tasks.

This book directly addresses these issues by implementing two input-to-output PIRCO sequences per unit, covering five core topics. Each PIRCO sequence consists of:

  • Pre-listening (2 pages) – A comprehensive vocabulary-building phase featuring 11-12 micro-reading and micro-listening tasks that introduce key vocabulary from the upcoming listening text.
  • In-listening (1 page) – A selective listening phase with structured comprehension tasks, including 3-4 wh-questions, true/false/not mentioned activities, and content reordering exercises, typically preceded by a ‘word grab’ game.
  • Review (½ page) – Students listen to the text while reading the transcript, identifying obstacles to comprehension. Teachers may follow up with strategy instruction to tackle these challenges.
  • Consolidation (1½ pages) – Reinforcement of key vocabulary through aural and reading tasks.
  • Output (1 page) – Retrieval of target vocabulary through translation and partial dictation exercises, essential for reinforcing lexical and syntactic patterns.

Each unit concludes with 2-3 pages of exam-style listening tasks, designed to assess students’ retention of language elements processed in the PIRCO phase.

What Themes Are Included in This Book?

This first volume, part of what we envision as a long series of listening books for the new GCSE, includes the following themes:

  • Healthy Living
  • Celebrity Culture
  • Environment and Where People Live
  • Customs, Festivals, and Celebrations
  • Media and Technology

How Can Teachers Use This Book?

This book is not intended as a primary textbook but as a workbook designed for multimodal practice of GCSE vocabulary and patterns. It is ideally used at the end of a series of lessons on each theme. We recommend a three-lesson approach:

  • Lesson 1: Pre-teaching
  • Lesson 2: In-listening, Review, and Consolidation
  • Lesson 3: Continued Consolidation and Output (Supplement written tasks with oral retrieval practice, role plays, photocard descriptions, and information-gap exercises.)
  • Lesson 4: Exam-style assessment tasks

For Lesson 2, before the In-listening phase, teachers may introduce a reading comprehension task based on a text similar in content and structure to the listening passage. This primes students for subsequent listening tasks.

How Does This Book Complement Other Resources?

This workbook is the perfect companion to Smith and Conti’s A New French GCSE Workbook and Conti and Vinales’ A New Spanish GCSE Workbook. Additionally, subscribers to http://www.language-gym.com will soon have access to a range of interactive exercises aligned with this book, including:

  • Vocabulary Workouts
  • Listening Workouts
  • Vocabulary and Listening Trainer
  • Boxing and Audio-Boxing Games
  • Rock Climbing and Sentence Trainer

Will there be a Spanish and a German version?

Yes. Dilan Vinales is already on it.

Why the input we give our learners must be 95-98% comprehensible in order to enhance language acquisition – the theory and the research evidence

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) Uncategorized , , , ,

Introduction

Second language acquisition (SLA) research strongly indicates that learners need to understand the vast majority (around 90–98%) of the language input they receive for optimal learning. This high level of comprehensible input ensures that learners can focus on gradually absorbing new elements (the i+1 content) without being overwhelmed. Below, we explore key research-backed reasons why 90–98% comprehensible input is considered ideal, with supporting studies from prominent SLA scholars like Stephen Krashen, Paul Nation, Norbert Schmitt, Batia Laufer, and others.

The Research evidence

There is plenty of research evidence to support the notion that students need 95 to 98% comprehensible input in order to grow linguistically. Table 1 below summarizes ten key studies which put this assumption to the test.

Cognitive Load and Processing Capacity

Cognitive load theory (Sweller, 1988) suggests that the brain has a limited capacity for processing new information at any given time. When learners are exposed to language that is too difficult (e.g., less than 90% comprehensible), the cognitive load becomes too high. This makes it difficult for learners to process and internalize new language structures and vocabulary because too much effort is spent trying to understand the meaning. On the other hand, when 90% to 98% of the input is comprehensible, learners can process new vocabulary and structures while still understanding the overall meaning, which facilitates automaticity—the ability to process language quickly and accurately.

Bill VanPatten (1990) demonstrated that second-language learners are limited-capacity processors who naturally pay attention to meaning before form; if they must struggle to decode too many unknown words or complex structures, their brains have little bandwidth left for learning new language features​. In other words, when input is 90–98% familiar, learners can devote cognitive resources to noticing and acquiring the small amount of new language (the remaining 2–10%) without being overwhelmed. VanPatten’s findings (Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 1990) showed that splitting attention between understanding meaning and analyzing form led to lower comprehension when input was too difficult, underscoring the need for mostly comprehensible input to keep cognitive load manageable​.

This aligns with Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988) in that excessive unfamiliar material in input imposes extraneous load, impeding efficient learning. Thus, a high percentage of known input ensures learners can process language meaningfully and transfer new items from working memory to long-term memory.

The Optimal Zone of Challenge (i+1)

Stephen Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1985) famously asserts that we acquire language by understanding input that contains a bit beyond our current level – he labeled this ideal input as “i+1”, meaning our current interlanguage state plus one level​. Crucially, Krashen emphasizes that input must be comprehensible for that one step beyond to be absorbed: “We acquire by understanding language that contains structure a bit beyond our current level of competence (i+1). This is done with the help of context or extra-linguistic information.” (Krashen, 1985, The Input Hypothesis)​.

In practice, this means learners should already know 90%+ of the words and structures in a message so that the few new items (the +1) are supported by context and understood in meaning. If the input is too far beyond (i+2, i+3, etc.), it ceases to be comprehensible and acquisition stalls. Effective input, according to Krashen, “need not contain only i+1” as long as it is largely understood; when communication is successful, the necessary i+1 is provided automatically by context and negotiation of meaning​.

This concept mirrors Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development in that the ideal challenge level is just above the current ability. Paul Nation (2013) likewise notes that “quality input” for learning should be at a level where only a small percentage of vocabulary is unknown, ensuring the text or speech is in an optimal zone of difficulty that promotes growth without causing frustration. In sum, research supports that 90–98% known input hits the sweet spot: it contains enough familiar language to be understood and just enough new language to push development. This i+1 zone maximizes acquisition by providing a manageable challenge.

Vocabulary Acquisition

Perhaps the most compelling evidence for needing ~95–98% comprehensible input comes from vocabulary studies. In order for learners to acquire new words incidentally (through reading or listening) and understand the overall content, they must know the large majority of the words in the input.

Batia Laufer (1989) found that learners generally need to understand at least 95% of the words in a text to adequately grasp its meaning​. At about 95% lexical coverage (i.e. only 1 unknown word in 20), readers could get “adequate” comprehension, whereas below that threshold comprehension dropped dramatically​. More recent research has pushed the target higher: Hu and Nation (2000) concluded that around 98% vocabulary coverage may be necessary for full, unassisted comprehension​. In a controlled study, Hu & Nation presented learners texts with varying percentages of known words; the learners generally needed to know 98–99% of the words to answer comprehension questions satisfactorily, whereas at 95% many struggled​. Norbert Schmitt et al. (2011) reinforced these findings in a large-scale experiment with 661 learners, noting a nearly linear relationship between vocabulary coverage and reading comprehension – as the percentage of known words rose, comprehension scores rose in tandem. They found no sudden “cliff” but did argue that 98% coverage is a more reasonable target for comfortable reading of academic texts​.

In practical terms, Paul Nation (2006) calculated that achieving 98% coverage in typical written texts requires a vocabulary size on the order of 8,000–9,000 word families (for reference, 95% coverage might require ~3,000 word families)​.Nation’s analysis (“How Large a Vocabulary Is Needed for Reading and Listening?”, CMLR, 2006) underscores that the last few percent of coverage (from 95% up to 98%) have a big impact on comprehension. If only 80–90% of words are known (so 10–20% unknown), comprehension plummets and guessing meaning becomes unreliable​.

Thus, vocabulary research supports providing learners with input (such as graded readers or leveled listening) where they know almost all the words, so that they can pick up the remaining few new words through context with relative ease. High coverage input not only aids immediate understanding but is also far more effective for incidental vocabulary acquisition. For example, Nagy, Herman, and Anderson (1985) found that each encounter with an unfamiliar word in a meaningful, comprehensible context can yield a small gain (5–10% of the word’s meaning on average)​. While 5–10% may seem minor, they noted that with enough comprehensible input, such incremental gains account for a large portion of vocabulary growth​

In sum, numerous studies (Laufer, 1989; Nation, 2006; Schmitt et al., 2011, among others) point to 95% as a minimal lexical coverage for basic comprehension and 98% as optimal for substantial comprehension and vocabulary learning​. This is why extensive reading and listening programs emphasize that texts should be 95–98% understandable to facilitate word learning.

Grammatical Structures and Syntax

Comprehensible input helps learners not only acquire vocabulary but also internalize grammatical structures. If too many grammatical structures are beyond their current understanding (less than 90% comprehensible), learners are likely to focus on trying to understand the meaning at the expense of learning the syntax (sentence structure) and morphology (word forms) of the language.

Input at the 90% to 98% level allows learners to make hypotheses about grammatical rules by encountering sentences that are just challenging enough for them to test their understanding. This kind of input supports both implicit learning (learning without conscious effort) and explicit learning (conscious awareness of language rules).

Contextual Clues and Inferencing

Comprehensible input provides the necessary backdrop for learners to make use of contextual clues and inference strategies to learn new language elements. If most of a sentence or discourse is understood, a learner can often guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word or deduce a grammatical function from context. However, this process only works when the proportion of unknown elements is low. Liu & Nation (1985) found that guessing unknown word meanings from context is rarely successful unless about 95% of the surrounding words are already familiar​.

.At lower levels of comprehension, learners’ inferencing often fails or leads to misunderstanding. For example, if a learner knows only 80% of the words in a text, the unknown 20% provide very little reliable clue to each other, akin to solving a puzzle with too many missing pieces. By contrast, at 95–98% known-word coverage, the context is rich enough to support educated guessing: the known parts of the sentence constrain the possible meanings of the unknown item. Nation (2001) notes that with high coverage, learners can use cues like redundancy, prior knowledge, and linguistic context to fill in gaps, gradually building their vocabulary through inference. Indeed, Nagy et al. (1985) estimated that when context is fully understood, learners gain a partial understanding of new words (a small percentage of meaning) with each encounters.

Multiple encounters in varied contexts then refine and solidify the word’s meaning. This means that incremental vocabulary learning through context is feasible only when input is comprehensible enough to make those first guesses. Paul Nation (2013) has pointed out that to infer word meaning from context, learners not only need a high percentage of known words, but also familiarity with the subject matter and discourse pattern. For example, a student reading a simplified story (with 98% known words) can often infer the remaining 2% (say, a new adjective or an unknown idiom) because the storyline and surrounding text make the meaning clear. If that same student tried a text with only 80% known words, they would likely resort to dictionary look-ups or simply not understand enough to infer anything useful. Research has also shown that incorrect inferences are common when coverage is low, which can mislead learners. Thus, maintaining 90–98% comprehensibility is key to leveraging context: it allows learners to use the known language to learn the unknown. Over time, this process contributes significantly to vocabulary expansion and comprehension skills. In short, comprehensible input provides a supportive context that permits effective inference and hypothesis-testing by the learner, whereas input with too many unknowns offers a poor context that can lead to frustration or false guesses​. This is one reason extensive reading proponents like Nation and Norbert Schmitt advocate using reading materials at an appropriate level of difficulty (often defined by that 95–98% coverage ratio). With adequately comprehensible input, learners become adept at “learning to learn” from context, an essential skill for autonomous language growth.

Affective Considerations

Learners’ emotional and psychological states can influence how much they benefit from input. When input is too difficult (e.g., below the 90% comprehension threshold), learners may experience frustration, anxiety, and reduced motivation, leading to a high affective filter that blocks language acquisition. Evelyn Hurwitz and Dolly Young’s studies on foreign language anxiety (Horwitz et al., 1986) showed that anxious students comprehend and retain less of the L2 input in classroom settings. They essentially have a “mental block” – Krashen’s metaphorical affective filter – that makes input go “in one ear and out the other.

Conversely, when input is mostly understandable (90-98%), learners are more likely to experience engagement and positive emotional responses, which lowers the affective filter and enhances learning.

Incremental Learning and Transfer (Transfer Appropriate Processing)

Language acquisition is a gradual, cumulative process, and the principle of incremental learning holds that learners build proficiency step by step through repeated exposure and practice. Comprehensible input at the right level facilitates this incremental learning by ensuring each new encounter reinforces existing knowledge and adds a small layer of new information. For example, a learner might first understand a sentence globally, then notice a new word in it, then later encounter that word in another sentence and refine their understanding, and so on. If input is too difficult, this incremental build-up cannot happen because the learner isn’t even sure what is being communicated.

The incremental nature of learning is supported by comprehensible input because it allows repeated exposures. A word or structure that is initially new (the +1) in one input will appear again in subsequent inputs, each time with the learner understanding more of it – this spaced, contextual repetition solidifies learning and aligns with principles of memory (e.g. spaced repetition, contextual encoding).

In sum, comprehensible input enables a cycle of incremental learning: each understandable encounter adds a bit to the learner’s competence, and because these encounters are in meaningful contexts, the learning is “tuned” to real communication (transfer-appropriate). As Lightbown (2008) notes, when instruction and practice mirror the desired use (e.g. understanding stories to improve listening comprehension skill), learners show better retention and ability to apply their knowledge beyond the classroom​.

This justifies methodologies like extensive reading, task-based learning, and story listening, which provide iterative, contextualized input at the right level. They ensure that knowledge is acquired in the same way it is needed for later use, making the transfer from learning to real-world communication as seamless as possible.

Conclusion

The research consistently underscores the critical importance of providing second language learners with comprehensible input that is 90–98% familiar in order to maximize their acquisition of both vocabulary and grammar. This input, which is just beyond their current level (i+1), allows learners to engage in meaningful, context-rich language use while still being challenged by a manageable amount of new material. Whether it’s through managing cognitive load, fostering incidental vocabulary acquisition, or supporting implicit grammar learning, comprehensible input lays the foundation for effective language development.

Moreover, the role of context and affective factors further emphasizes that language learning is not just a cognitive exercise but a holistic experience. The Affective Filter Hypothesis reminds us that learners must be in a supportive, low-anxiety environment for input to be absorbed efficiently. High levels of comprehension and emotional comfort together create the optimal conditions for second language acquisition.

In practice, this means that language instructors should focus on providing students with abundant, comprehensible input, through activities such as extensive reading, conversation, and content-based learning. By ensuring that the majority of the input is understood while still introducing small challenges, teachers can help learners gradually expand their language abilities. As research suggests, comprehensible input not only promotes effective learning but also ensures that students are equipped to transfer their newly acquired knowledge to real-world language use.

References:

  • Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Pergamon Press. (See especially the Input Hypothesis and Affective Filter Hypothesis for the role of comprehensible input and emotional factors in SLA.)
  • Krashen, S. (1985). The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. Longman. (Introduces the i+1 concept, arguing that acquisition occurs with input just beyond the current level, in low-anxiety environments.)
  • Laufer, B. (1989). “What percentage of text-lexis is essential for comprehension?” Ceben (In: Special Language: From Humans to Thinking Machines, ed. by C. Lauren & M. Nordman). (Pioneer study suggesting ~95% of words need to be known for adequate text comprehension​.)
  • Hu, M. & Nation, P. (2000). “Unknown Word Density and Reading Comprehension.” Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403–430. (Found learners needed 98% lexical coverage for satisfactory reading comprehension​
  • Nation, I.S.P. (2006). “How Large a Vocabulary Is Needed For Reading and Listening?” Canadian Modern Language Review, 63(1), 59–82. (Vocabulary size estimates for 95% vs. 98% coverage; ~8,000–9,000 word families for 98% coverage​
  • Schmitt, N., Jiang, X., & Grabe, W. (2011). “The Percentage of Words Known in a Text and Reading Comprehension.” Modern Language Journal, 95(1), 26–43. (Empirical study showing a near-linear increase of comprehension with higher known-word percentages; supports 98% coverage target​.)
  • Liu, N. & Nation, P. (1985). “Factors Affecting Guessing Vocabulary in Context.” RELC Journal, 16(1), 33–42. (Concluded learners need around 95% familiar words in a text to guess unknown words with reasonable success​.)
  • VanPatten, B. (1990). “Attending to Form and Content in the Input: An Experiment in Consciousness.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 12(3), 287–301. (Demonstrated that learners process input for meaning before form; too much new information can hinder form acquisition​.)
  • VanPatten, B., Keating, G., & Leeser, M. (2012). “The Eye-Tracking Study of Attention to Form in Spanish L2 Learners.” (As referenced in VanPatten’s work – showed that morphological details are acquired via input, not by isolated practice​.)
  • Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2000). Tense and Aspect in Second Language Acquisition: Form, Meaning, and Use. Blackwell. (Provided evidence that learners acquire complex grammatical systems like tense/aspect gradually and in piecemeal fashion, often independent of explicit instruction.)
  • Lightbown, P. M. (2008). “Transfer Appropriate Processing as a Model for Classroom Second Language Acquisition.” In Z. Han (Ed.), Understanding Second Language Process (pp. 27–44). Multilingual Matters. (Argues that practice/learning conditions should match target use conditions for best retention and transfer – supporting use of meaningful, contextualized input in class​.)
  • Nagy, W., Herman, P., & Anderson, R. (1985). “Learning Words from Context.” Reading Research Quarterly, 20(2), 233–253. (Found that incidental exposure in context leads to small incremental gains in word knowledge, which accumulate given sufficient reading​.)
  • Dulay, H. & Burt, M. (1977). “Remarks on Creativity in Language Acquisition.” In M. Burt, H. Dulay, & M. Finocchiaro (Eds.), Viewpoints on English as a Second Language (pp. 95–126). Regents. (Originated the concept of the affective filter, later incorporated by Krashen, noting how negative emotion can impede language uptake.)
  • Horwitz, E., Horwitz, M., & Cope, J. (1986). “Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety.” Modern Language Journal, 70(2), 125–132. (Detailed how anxiety can negatively affect learners’ classroom performance and presumably their processing of input.)
  • Morris, C., Bransford, J., & Franks, J. (1977). “Levels of Processing versus Transfer Appropriate Processing.” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 16(5), 519–533. (Classic psychology study proposing TAP: memory success depends on the match between learning and retrieval conditions, a concept applied to SLA by Lightbown 2008 and others.)

Mapping out the second language writing process and implications for teaching

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) Uncategorized, Writing skills , , , ,

1. Introduction 

In this article I take on the complex task of illustrating the cognitive processes that take place in the brain of a second language student writer as s/he produces an essay. Why? Because often, as teachers and target language experts, we forget how challenging it is for our students to write an essay in a foreign language. Gaining a better grasp of the thinking processes essay writing in a second language involves, may help teachers become more cognitively empathetic towards their students; moreover, they may reconsider the way they teach writing and treat student errors.

A caveat before we proceed: this article is quite a challenging read which may require some background in applied linguistics and/or cognitive psychology. However, if you want to avoid the complex stuff and concentrate on writing at lower proficiency levels (KS2 to KS4) you can go straight to section 3 below.

 

2. A Cognitive account of the writing processes: the Flower and Hayes (1981) model

The Flower and Hayes (1981) model of essay writing in a first language is regarded as one of the most effective accounts of writing available to-date (Eysenck and Keane, 2010). As Figure 1 below shows, it posits three major components:

  1. Task-environment,
  1. Writer’s Long-Term Memory,
  1. Writing process.

Figure 1: The Flower and Hayes model (click to expand)

The Task-environment includes: (1) the Writing Assignment (the topic, the target audience, and motivational factors) and the text; (2) the Writer’s Long-term memory, which provides factual knowledge and skill/genre specific procedures; (3) the Writing Process, which consists of the three sub-processes of Planning, Translating and Reviewing.

The Planning process sets goals based on information drawn from the Task-environment and Long-Term Memory (LTM). Once these have been established, a writing plan is developed to achieve those goals. More specifically, the Generating sub-process retrieves information from LTM through an associative chain in which each item of information or concept retrieved functions as a cue to retrieve the next item of information and so forth.The Organising sub-process selects the most relevant items of information retrieved and organizes them into a coherent writing plan. Finally, the Goal-setting sub-process sets rules (e.g. ‘keep it simple’) that will be applied in the Editing process. The second process, Translating, transforms the information retrieved from LTM into language. This is necessary, since concepts are stored in LTM in the form of Propositions (‘concepts’/ ‘imagery’), not words. Flower and Hayes (1980) provide the following examples of what propositions involve:

[(Concept A) (Relation B) (Concept C)]

or

{Concept D) (Attribute E)], etc.

Finally, the Reviewing processes of Reading and Editing have the function of enhancing the quality of the output. The Editing process checks that grammar rules and discourse conventions are not being flouted, looks for semantic inaccuracies and evaluates the text in the light of the writing goals. Editing has the form of a Production system with two IF- THEN conditions:

The first part specifies the kind of language to which the editing production

applies, e.g. formal sentences, notes, etc. The second is a fault detector for

such problems as grammatical errors, incorrect words, and missing context.

(Flower and Hayes, 1981: 17)

In other words, when the conditions of a Production are met, e.g. a wrong word ending is detected, an action is triggered for fixing the problem. For example:

CONDITION 1: (formal sentence) first letter of sentence lower case

CONDITION 2: change first letter to upper case

(Flower and Hayes, 1981: 17)

Two important features of the Editing process are: (1) it is triggered automatically whenever the conditions of an Editing Production are met; (2) it may interrupt any other ongoing process. Editing is regulated by an attentional system called The Monitor. Hayes and Flower do not provide a detailed account of how it operates. Differently from Krashen’s (1977) Monitor, a control system used solely for editing, Hayes and Flower’s (1980) device operates at all levels of production orchestrating the activation of the various sub-processes. This allows Hayes and Flower to account for two phenomena they observed. Firstly, the Editing and the Generating processes can cut across other processes. Secondly, the existence of the Monitor enables the system to be flexible in the application of goal-setting rules, in that through the Monitor any other processes can be triggered. This flexibility allows for the recursiveness of the writing process.

Hayes and Flower’s model is useful in providing teachers with a framework for understanding the many demands that essay writing poses on students. In particular, it helps teachers understand how the recursiveness of the writing process may cause those demands to interfere with each other causing cognitive overload and error.

Furthermore, by conceptualising editing as a process that can interrupt writing at any moment, the model has a very important implication for a theory of error: self-correctable errors occurring at any level of written production are not always the result of a retrieval failure; they may also be interpreted as caused by detection failure (failure to ‘spot’ a mistake).

One limitation of the model for a theory of error is that its description of the Translating and Editing sub-processes is too general. I shall therefore supplement it with Cooper and Matsuhashi’s (1983) list of writing plans and decisions along with findings from other L1-writing Cognitive research, which will provide the reader with a more detailed account. I shall also briefly discuss some findings from proofreading research which may help explain some of the problems encountered by L2-student writers during the Editing process.

3. The translating sub-processes

Cooper and Matsuhashi (1983) posit four stages, which correspond to Flower and Hayes’ (1981) conceptualization of the Translating process: Wording, Presenting, Storing and Transcribing (see picture 2 below)

Figure 2 –  The Translating sub-processes (Click to expand)

  • WORDING THE PROPOSITION (Lexical selection) – In this first stage, the brain transforms the propositional content into lexis. Although at this stage the pre-lexical decisions the writer made at earlier stages and the preceding discourse limit lexical choice, Wording the proposition is still a complex task: ‘the choice seems infinite, especially when we begin considering all the possibilities for modifying or qualifying the main verb and the agentive and affected nouns’ (Cooper and Matsuhashi, 1983: 32). Once s/he has selected the lexical items, the writer has to tackle the task of Presenting the proposition in standard written language.
  • PRESENTING THE PROPOSITION (Grammatical encoding) – This involves making a series of decisions in the areas of genre, grammar and syntax. In the area of grammar, Agreement, Word-order and Tense will be the main issues for L1_English learners of languages like French, German, Italian or Spanish. Functional processing, i.e. assigning a functional role (e.g. subject, verb, direct or indirect object) to every word in a sentence, precedes Positional processing, i.e. arranging the words in the correct syntactic order. This is the stage where grammatical mistakes are made, mostly due, in second language writing, to processing inefficiency (e.g. mistakes caused by cognitive overload), carelessness (i.e. superficial self-monitoring) and, of course, L1/L3 negative transfer (i.e. the influence of the first language or other languages).
  • STORING THE PROPOSITION (Phonological and Orthographic encoding) – The proposition, as planned so far, is then temporarily stored in Working Short Term Memory (henceforth WSTM) while Transcribing takes place, first in form of sound (phonological encoding). Phonological encoding is crucial for internal speech monitoring and for preparing the sentence for written output Propositions longer than just a few words will have to be rehearsed and re-rehearsed in WSTM for parts of it not to be lost before the transcription is complete. The limitations of WSTM create serious disadvantages for unpractised writers. Until they gain some confidence and fluency with spelling, their WSTM may have to be loaded up with letter sequences of single words or with only 2 or 3 words (Hotopf, 1980). This not only slows down the writing process, but it also means that all other planning must be suspended during the transcriptions of short letter or word sequences. This is where many spelling mistakes occur, especially with younger L2 learners (who have a much more limited working memory capacity than older learners) or less able older learners. This problem will be exacerbated in the case of children having to learn a completely different writing system (i.e. an English native learning to write in Mandarin).
  • TRANSCRIBING THE PROPOSITION (Motor planning and execution) – The physical act of transcribing the fully formed proposition begins once the graphic image of the output has been stored in WSTM. In L1-writing, transcription occupies subsidiary awareness, enabling the writer to use focal awareness for other plans and decisions. In practised writers, transcription of certain words and sentences can be so automatic as to permit planning the next proposition while one is still transcribing the previous one. An interesting finding with regards to these final stages of written production comes from Bereiter, Fire and Gartshore (1979) who investigated L1-writers aged 10-12. They identified several discrepancies between learners’ forecasts in think-aloud and their actual writing. 78 % of such discrepancies involved stylistic variations. Notably, in 17% of the forecasts, significant words were uttered in forecasts which did not appear in the writing. In about half of these cases the result was a syntactic flaw (e.g. the forecasted phrase ‘on the way to school’ was written ‘on the to school’). Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) believe that lapses of this kind indicate that language is lost somewhere between storage in WSTM and grapho-motor execution. These lapses, they also assert, cannot be described as ‘forgetting what one was going to say’ since almost every omission was reported on recall: in the case of ‘on the to school’, for example, the author not only intended to write ‘on the way’ but claimed later to have written it. In their view, this is caused by interference from the attentional demands of the mechanics of writing (spelling, capitalization, etc.), the underlying psychological premise being that a writer has a limited amount of attention to allocate and that whatever is taken up with the lower level demands of written language must be taken from something else.

In sum, Cooper and Matsuhashi (1983) posit four main stages in the conversion of the preverbal message into a speech plan: (1) the selection of the right lexical units (2) the application of grammatical and syntactic rules. (3) The unit of language is then deposited in WSTM in phonological and orthographic form, awaiting translation into grapho-motor execution (the physical act of writing). (4) grapho-motor execution

The temporary storage in stage (3) raises the possibility that lower level demands affect production as follows: (1) causing the writer to omit material during grapho-motor execution; (2) leading to forgetting higher-level decisions already made. Interference resulting in WSTM loss can also be caused by lack of monitoring of the written output due to devoting conscious attention entirely to planning ahead, while leaving the process of transcription to run ‘on automatic’.

Picture 2 (repeated)

Implications for teaching

The implications of the above for second language instruction are obvious: the implementation of a process-based approach to writing instruction in which the teachers stages sequences of activities which explicitly address the micro-skills of writing. This entails engaging students, consistently, in tasks which practise said micro-skills. See picture 2 above, Picture 3 below, provides examples of activities that could be implemented for each micro-skill.

Imagine, after exploiting 90-95% comprehensible-input texts intensively through a range of activities, engaging the students in micro-writing tasks addressing all of the micro-skills of writing prior to staging more unstructured and creative activities. Would your students not perform better? Would you not be more inclusive?

4. How about editing? Some insights from proofreading research

Proofreading theories and research provide us with the following important insights in the mechanisms that regulate essay editing. Firstly, proofreading involves different processes from reading: when one proofreads a passage, one is generally looking for misspellings, words that might have been omitted or repeated, typographical mistakes, etc., and as a result, comprehension is not the goal. When one is reading a text, on the other hand, one’s primary goal is comprehension. Thus, reading involves construction of meaning, while proofreading involves visual search. For this reason, in reading, short function words, not being semantically salient, are not fixated (Paap, Newsome, McDonald and Schvaneveldt, 1982). Consequently, errors on such words are less likely to be spotted when one is editing a text concentrating mostly on its meaning than when one is focusing one’s attention on the text as part of a proofreading task (Haber and Schindler, 1981). Errors are likely to decrease even further when the proofreader is forced to fixate on every single function word in isolation (Haber and Schindler, 1981).

It should also be noted that some proofreader’s errors appear to be due to acoustic coding. This refers to the phenomenon whereby the way a proofreader pronounces a word/diphthong/letter influences his/her detection of an error. For example, if an English learner of L2-Italian pronounces the ‘e’ in the singular noun ‘stazione’ (= train station) as [i] instead of [e], s/he will find it difficult to differentiate it from the plural ‘stazioni’ (= train stations). This may impinge on her/his ability to spot errors with that word involving the use of the singular for the plural and vice versa.

Implications for teaching

The implications for language learning are that learners may have to be trained to edit their essays at least once focusing exclusively on form. Ideally, with beginner learners, the teacher should encourage several rounds of editing, each focusing on a different potential problem areas, gradually moving from easier to more challenging items.

Secondly, they should be told to pay particular attention to those words (e.g. function words) and parts of words (e.g. verb endings) which are not semantically and perceptually salient and are therefore less likely to be noticed.

Thirdly, dictations should feature regularly in language lessons from very early on in the L2 learning process, beginning with micro-dictation focusing on single letters or syllables, then moving on to gapped sentences and finally to longer texts with more cognitive challenging tasks such as dictogloss.

5. Bilingual written production: adapting the first language model

Writing, although slower than speaking, is still processed at enormous speed in mature native speakers’ WSTM. The processing time required by a writer will be greater in the L2 than in the L1 and will increase at lower levels of proficiency: at the Wording stage, more time will be needed to match non-proceduralized lexical materials to propositions; at the Presenting stage, more time will be needed to select and retrieve the right grammatical form. Furthermore, more attentional effort will be required in rehearsing the sentence plans in WSTM; in fact, just like Hotopf’s (1980) young L1-writers, non- proficient L2-learners may be able to store in WSTM only two or three words at a time. This has implications for Agreement in Italian, French or Spanish in view of the fact that words more than three-four words distant from one another may still have to agree in gender and number. Finally, in the Transcribing phase, the retrieval of spelling and other aspects of the writing mechanics will take up more WSTM focal awareness.

Monitoring too will require more conscious effort, increasing the chances of Short-term Memory loss. This is more likely to happen with less expert learners: the attentional system having to monitor levels of language that in the mature L1-speaker are normally automatized, it will not have enough channel capacity available, at the point of utterance, to cope with lexical/grammatical items that have not yet been proceduralised. This also implies that Editing is likely to be more recursive than in L1-writing, interrupting other writing processes more often, with consequences for the higher meta-components. In view of the attentional demands posed by L2-writing, the interference caused by planning ahead will also be more likely to occur, giving rise to processing failure. Processing failure/WSTM loss may also be caused by the L2-writer pausing to consult dictionaries or other resources to fill gaps in their L2-knowledge while rehearsing the incomplete sentence plan in WSTM. In fact, research indicates that although, in general terms, composing patterns (sequences of writing behaviours) are similar in L1s and L2s there are some important differences.

In his seminal review of the L1/L2-writing literature, Silva (1993) identified a number of discrepancies between L1- and L2-composing. Firstly, L2-composing was clearly more difficult. More specifically, the Transcribing phase was more laborious, less fluent, and less productive. Also, L2-writers spent more time referring back to an outline or prompt and consulting dictionaries. They also experienced more problems in selecting the appropriate vocabulary. Furthermore, L2-writers paused more frequently and for longer time, which resulted in L2-writing occurring at a slower rate. As far as Reviewing is concerned, Silva (1993) found evidence in the literature that in L2-writing there is usually less re-reading of and reflecting on written texts. He also reported evidence suggesting that L2-writers revise more, before and while drafting, and in between drafts. However, this revision was more problematic and more of a preoccupation. There also appears to be less auditory monitoring in the L2 and L2-revision seems to focus more on grammar and less on mechanics, particularly spelling. Finally, the text features of L2-written texts provide strong evidence suggesting that L2-writing is a less fluent process involving more errors and producing – at least in terms of the judgements of native English speakers – less effective texts.

Implications for teaching

Firstly, the process of writing being much more challenging in the second language, teachers must scaffold writing much more carefully. This starts with staging an intensive reading-to-learn phase prior to engaging the students in writing tasks, which unfortunately doesn’t happen with textbooks, because the latter only include reading-to-comprehend activities. After this intensive receptive phase, teachers should engage the students in a series of micro-writing tasks which gradually phase out support and increase in cognitive load. This means beginning writing practice with basic SVO sentences and gradually moving to more complex SVOCA sentence structures and subordination.

6. Conclusions

Essay writing is a very complex process which poses a huge cognitive load onto the average second  language learner’s brain, especially at lower levels of proficiency. The cognitive load is determined by the fact that the L2 student writer has to plan the essay whilst focusing on the act of translating ideas (propositions) into the foreign language. Converting propositions into L2 sentences, as I have tried to illustrate, is hugely challenging per se for a non-native speaker, let alone when the brain has to hold in Working Memory the ideas one intends to convey at the same time. Working Memory being limited in capacity it is easy to ‘lose’ one or the other in the process and equally easy to make mistakes, as the monitor (i.e. the error detecting system in our brain) receives less activation due to cognitive overload.

Hence, before plunging our students into essay writing teachers need to ensure that they provide lots of practice in the execution of the different sets of skills that writing involves (e.g. ideas generation, planning, organization, self-monitoring) separately. For instance, a writing lesson may involve sections where the students are focused on discrete sets of higher order skills (e.g. practising idea generation; evaluating relevance of the ideas generated to a given topic/essay title) and sections where lower order skills are drilled in ( application of grammar and syntax rules, lexical recall, spelling). Only when the students have reached a reasonable level of maturity across most of the key skills embedded in the models discussed above should students be asked to engage in extensive writing.

Consequently, an effective essay-writing instruction curriculum must identify the main skills involved in the writing process (as per the above model); allocate sufficient time for their extensive practice as contextualized within the themes and text genres relevant to the course under study; build in the higher order skill practice opportunities to embed practice in the lower order skills identified above (the mechanics of the language), whilst being mindful of potential cognitive overload issues.

In terms of editing, the above discussion has enormous implications as it suggests that teachers should train learners to become more effective editors through regular editing practice (e.g. ‘Error hunting’ activities). Such training may result in more rapid and effective application of editing skills in real operating conditions as the execution of Self-Monitoring will require less cognitive space in Working Memory. Training learners in editing should be a regular occurrence in lessons if we want it to actually work; also, it should be contextualized in a relevant linguistic environment as much as possible (e.g. if we are training the students to become better essay editors we ought to provide them with essay-editing practice, not just with random and uncontextualized sentences).

In conclusion, I firmly believe that the above model should be used by every language teacher, curriculum designer as a starting point for the planning of any writing instruction program. Not long ago I took part in a conference and a colleague was recommending to the attending teachers to give his Year 12 students exam-like discursive essays to write, week in week out for the very first week of the course. I am not ashamed to admit that I used to do the same in my first years of teaching A levels. The above discussion, however, would suggest that such an approach may be counterproductive; it may lead to errors, fossilization of those errors, and inhibit proficiency development whilst stifling the higher metacomponents of the writing process, idea-generation, essay organization and self-monitoring.

In which order should we teach grammar structures based on SLA research?

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) Uncategorized , , , ,

Introduction

I was recently asked by a member of the Facebook group I co-founded with Dylan Vinales, Global Innovative Language teachers how grammar structures should be sequenced in a curriculum. The easy answer is: from easier to difficult, of course. But how do we establish which structures are more easily learnable than others?

A researcher by the name of Manfred Pienemann, attempted to answer this question with a landmark study Pienemann, M. (1984). “Psychological Constraints on the Teachability of Languages.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 6(2), 186-214. This study laid the groundwork for his later development of Processability Theory (1998), which further expanded on how learners acquire grammatical structures in a fixed sequence.

Manfred Pienemann’s Learnability Theory suggests that language acquisition follows a predictable sequence due to human working memory’s cognitive constraints. His Processability Theory (PT) builds on this by explaining how learners acquire grammatical structures step by step, as their cognitive processing abilities develop.

Key concepts of Learnability Theory

  1. Developmental Stages: Language structures are acquired in a sequence, meaning some grammatical forms cannot be learned before others.
  2. Teachability Hypothesis: Instruction can only be effective if it aligns with the learner’s current stage of acquisition. Trying to teach advanced structures too early is ineffective.
  3. Processing Hierarchy: Learners process simpler linguistic structures before tackling more complex ones.

Stages of French Language Acquisition Based on Processability Theory

Pienemann’s theory outlines a six-stage sequence for second language acquisition. Below is how this sequence applies to French learners:

Stage 1: Single Words and Fixed Phrases (No Real Grammar Processing)

At this pre-syntactic stage, learners rely on memorized words and formulaic phrases without grammatical manipulation.

  • Bonjour ! (Hello!)
  • Merci ! (Thank you!)
  • Comment ça va ? (How’s it going?)
  • Moi, Marie. (Me, Marie.)

Key Characteristics:

Learners do not yet process word order or inflections.
Responses are often formulaic and learned as whole chunks.

Stage 2: Simple Word Order (Canonical Word Order – SVO)

At this stage, learners start forming simple Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) sentences.

  • Je mange une pomme. (I eat an apple.)
  • Il aime le chocolat. (He likes chocolate.)
  • Marie regarde la télé. (Marie watches TV.)

Key Characteristics:

Learners can construct basic declarative sentences.
No agreement processing yet (gender, number).
No word order variation (such as inversion for questions).

Stage 3: Morphological Inflections (Lexical Morphology)

Learners begin processing grammatical markers like plural (-s), gender agreement, and verb inflections.

  • Les pommes sont rouges. (The apples are red.) → (Plural agreement)
  • Un petit garçon / Une petite fille (A small boy / A small girl) → (Gender agreement)
  • Je finis mon travail. (I finish my work.) → (Present tense verb inflection)

Key Characteristics:

Learners begin applying regular inflections (e.g., plural -s, feminine -e).
Still inconsistent with irregular forms.
Errors in agreement (e.g., les grande maison instead of les grandes maisons).

Stage 4: Sentence Internal Reordering (Question Formation & Object Pronouns)

At this stage, learners acquire word order changes beyond the basic SVO structure. This includes:

1. Question Formation (Simple & Inversion)

  • Tu as un chien ? (You have a dog?) → (Rising intonation, no inversion)
  • Est-ce que tu as un chien ? (Do you have a dog?) → (Fixed structure)
  • As-tu un chien ? (Have you a dog?) → (Inversion – more advanced)

2. Object Pronoun Placement

  • Je vois Marie. (I see Marie.) → Basic SVO order
  • Je la vois. (I see her.) → (Pronoun before verb – first instance of reordering)
  • Je ne la vois pas. (I don’t see her.) → (More complex negative structure)

Key Characteristics:

Learners start reordering elements in sentences.
Questions evolve from declarative word order to inversion patterns.
Object pronouns begin appearing in correct positions.
Errors still common (e.g., Je vois la instead of Je la vois).

Stage 5: Subordinate Clauses & Complex Structures

Learners begin processing embedded clauses and subordinate structures.

  • Je pense qu’il viendra demain. (I think that he will come tomorrow.) → (Subordination)
  • Le livre que j’ai lu est intéressant. (The book that I read is interesting.) → (Relative clause)
  • Si j’avais le temps, je voyagerais. (If I had time, I would travel.) → (Conditional sentences)

Key Characteristics:

 Learners can link ideas in longer sentences.

They produce relative clauses, conditionals, and reported speech.

Errors in conjugation and agreement still occur.

Stage 6: Full Processing of Advanced Structures

At this final stage, learners acquire full sentence reordering, advanced agreement, and complex clauses.

  • Le professeur dont je t’ai parlé est ici. (The teacher whom I told you about is here.) → (Relative pronoun “dont”)
  • Si j’avais su, je serais venu plus tôt. (If I had known, I would have come earlier.) → (Past conditional)
  • Il faut que tu viennes demain. (You must come tomorrow.) → (Subjunctive mood usage)

Key Characteristics:

Learners master subjunctive, advanced conditionals, and complex reordering.
Proficiency level approaches native-like fluency.
Errors become minor and infrequent.

How Learnability Theory Guides French Teaching

  1. Teach in the right order:
    • Start with simple sentences before introducing agreement rules.
    • Teach basic questions (Tu as un chien ?) before inversion (As-tu un chien ?).
    • Introduce object pronouns before relative clauses.
  2. Respect processing constraints:
    • How many cognitive steps does the execution of a specific grammar structure involve? If working memory can only process about 4-6 items in younger learners and 5 to 9 in 16+ learners, will they cope with the cognitive load posed by the target structure?  

Example 1: the perfect tense with ETRE involves 6 or 7 mental operations/substeps. Are we sure that the target language learners can process all of them?

Example 2: A beginner won’t use the subjunctive correctly (Il faut que tu viennes) if they haven’t mastered basic verb conjugations first.

  1. Trying to teach complex tenses (e.g., Si j’avais su, je serais venu) before learners are ready leads to confusion.
  2. Provide appropriate input:
    • At early stages, focus on high-frequency structures (e.g., present tense, SVO order).
    • Gradually introduce complex grammar once learners can process simpler structures.

In considering the cognitive load posed by the target grammar structures in an attempt to sequence them in your curriculum in a easier to harder flow, it is key to consider the challenges posed by each of them, summarised in the table below, from my workshop on Grammar Instruction.

Why do younger learners find learning grammar challenging?

Gianfranco Conti, Phd (Applied Linguistics), MA (TEFL), MA (English Lit.), PGCE (Modern Languages and P.E.) Uncategorized , , , ,

Younger second language (L2) learners often struggle with grammar acquisition due to cognitive, linguistic, and developmental factors. Unlike vocabulary, which they can pick up more naturally, grammar rules require abstract thinking, memory, and metalinguistic awareness, which are still developing in young learners. Below are the key reasons why younger L2 learners find grammar learning challenging:

1. Limited Cognitive development

1.1 Abstract Thinking is Not Fully Developed

  • Grammar rules involve abstract concepts (e.g., verb conjugations, subject-verb agreement, and tenses).
  • Piaget’s (1954) Cognitive Development Theory states that children under 11 operate in the concrete operational stage, meaning they struggle with abstract rules.
  • Older learners (adolescents and adults) use formal operational thinking (age 12+), making them better at understanding syntactic structures

1.2 Working Memory Limitations

  • Younger children have smaller working memory capacity (Gathercole & Alloway, 2008), meaning they struggle to hold and process multiple grammar rules at once.Older learners can store and manipulate grammatical structures more efficiently.
  • Older learners can store and manipulate grammatical structures more efficiently.

2. Lack of Metalinguistic Awareness

2.1 Younger learners do not consciously analyze language

  • Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to think about and manipulate language structures, which develops with age.
  • Studies (Bialystok & Barac, 2012) show that younger L2 learners focus more on communication rather than explicit grammar rules.

2.2 Struggle with Error Correction

  • Because of their lack of metalinguistic awareness and limited levels of LAA* (language analytical ability), younger learners do not benefit much from error correction
  • Older learners can self-correct grammatical mistakes by applying rules.
  • Younger children often repeat mistakes without realizing why they are incorrect.

3. Implicit vs. Explicit Learning Differences

  • Younger learners rely more on implicit learning (unconscious absorption of rules), while older learners benefit from explicit instruction. That is why using EPI, which relies heavily on structural priming (subconscious learning of grammar) is so powerful at primary.
  • Grammar requires explicit learning (Ellis, 2006), and young children struggle with rule-based learning since they primarily learn through exposure and repetition rather than conscious analysis.

4. Difficulty Generalizing Grammar Rules

4.1 Overgeneralization of rules

  • Younger L2 learners tend to overgeneralize grammatical patterns (e.g., saying “goed” instead of “went”).
  • This happens because they rely on patterns rather than understanding exceptions, which is common in early L1 and L2 learning (Pinker, 1999).Grammar Rules Change Based on Context

4.2 Grammar Rules Change Based on Context

  • Some grammatical structures vary depending on context (e.g., past tense in regular vs. irregular verbs).
  • Young learners struggle to apply rules flexibly in different contexts.

5. Limited Input and Reinforcement

5.1 Grammar exposure in early L2 learning is inconsistent

  • Young learners often hear simplified language (e.g., teachers and caregivers speaking in basic sentences).
  • Without frequent rich input, grammar structures take longer to acquire.

5.2 Grammar Rules Change Based on Context

  • Young learners struggle to apply rules flexibly in different contexts.
  • Some grammatical structures vary depending on context (e.g., past tense in regular vs. irregular verbs).

6.6. Pronunciation and Phonological Constraints Affect Grammar Learning

Syntax and morphology take longer to develop, especially in languages with complex word order (e.g., German, Russian).

Younger learners focus more on pronunciation and vocabulary, delaying grammar acquisition.

7. Limited Literacy Skills

Reading and writing skills support grammar acquisition

  • Older learners benefit from written reinforcement (e.g., textbooks, grammar exercises).
  • Younger learners, especially pre-literate children, lack exposure to written forms of grammar.

Conclusions

Younger L2 learners acquire vocabulary naturally but struggle with grammar because it requires abstract thinking, rule analysis, and memory capacity.

Older learners are better at learning grammar explicitly due to stronger cognitive abilities and metalinguistic awareness.

Young learners need repeated exposure, interactive learning, and implicit reinforcement rather than direct rule-based teaching. The exposure must be as multimodal as possible and .cognizant of the TAP (transfer appropriate processing) phenomenon, i.e. the context-dependency of memory (e.g. a grammar rule learnt through rehearsing a song many times over is not likely to be transferred to other contexts and tasks, but is going to sty confined to that song).

The grammar content needs to be light and informed by the learners’ readiness to acquire the target structures.

The students should not be asked to produce language too soon and in the contexts of tasks that challenge them beyond their current level of competence. This applies to learners of any age, but it is particularly true of primary-age students, as they are low monitors of grammar accuracy.

EPI (Extensive Processing Instruction) is very powerful in this respect as it capitalizes on subsconscious learning through syntactic priming, i.e. where exposure to a specific sentence structure increases the likelihood of using the same structure in subsequent speech or writing. It occurs in both first (L1) and second language (L2) learning, reinforcing grammatical patterns through repetition. For example, if someone hears “The cat was chased by the dog” (passive voice), they are more likely to later produce another passive sentence like “The book was read by the student.” Studies (Bock, 1986) show syntactic priming helps L2 learners internalize complex structures, aiding fluency and reducing cognitive load during sentence formation.

Here’s a summary of the above points:

*Language Analytical Ability (LAA) refers to the cognitive skill that enables learners to analyze, understand, and manipulate linguistic structures in a second language (L2). It is crucial for explicit grammar learning, problem-solving in language acquisition, and recognizing language patterns.