Methods

Participants

Data are being collected at secondary schools (learners aged 10–18 years) in three German states (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, North-Rhine-Westphalia) from academic and vocational schools (Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium/Abitur-track), with a target sample of approximately 700 informants.

Tasks

Representing a range of communicative contexts, the tasks administered include both established (timed argumentative essay, picture description) and innovative task types (group discussion, elicitation of digital communication), with varying degrees of planning and interactivity.

In-class writing

Participants of all ages are given the following short essay prompt:

"Imagine that you have just received a message that you have won one million Euros in the national lottery. Write a text about what you would do with the money."

For students in grades 10-12, this task is supplemented with second more complex short essay prompt:

"Please write your opinion on the following statement: In our modern world, dominated by technology, science, and industrialization, there is no longer a place for dreaming and imagination."

Oral picture description

In a short individual recording session, participants are asked to describe what they see in the comic shown here:

Small group discussion

In groups of three to five, participants discuss the topics of family, friends and hobbies (in grades 5-12) and/or the question "What makes a good teacher?" (in grades 7-12)

Examples of questions used to lead the discussion include:

Digital communication

Participants send messages in the instant-messaging app Element.

Research assistants lead the conversation with questions such as:

Metadata

We collect an extensive set of metadata, based on a modified version of the questionnaire and procedure proposed by Möller (2017) and in line with the core L2 metadata scheme (Frey et al. 2023). 

This comprises established test batteries assessing:

Analyses

After transcription and annotation, interactions between CAF components as well as the influence of contextual and learner variables will be assessed using mixed-effects regression modeling.

References

Frey JC, König A, Stemle EW, Paquot M (2023, August 30-September 2). A core metadata schema for L2 data. [Conference presentation] EuroSLA 32, Conference of the European Second Language Association, Birmingham, UK.

Kubinger, K. & Hagenmüller, B. (2019). Gruppentest zur Erfassung der Intelligenz auf Basis des AID. Hogrefe.

Lohbeck, A. & Petermann, F. (2019). Fragebogen zur Leistungsmotivation für Schülerinnen und Schüler der 3. bis 6. Klasse – Revision. Hogrefe.

Möller, V. (2017). Language Acquisition in CLIL and Non-CLIL Settings: Learner Corpus and Experimental Evidence on Passive Constructions. Benjamins.


Petermann, F. & Winkel, S. (2015). Fragebogen zur Leistungsmotivation für Schüler der 7. bis 13. Klasse. Pearson Harcourt.