Languaging: University Students Learn the Grammatical Concept of Voice in French

✍ Scribed by MERRILL SWAIN; SHARON LAPKIN; IBTISSEM KNOUZI; WATARU SUZUKI; LINDSAY BROOKS

• Book ID: 109162662
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 388 KB
• Volume: 93
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0026-7902
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00825.x

✦ Synopsis

In this article we explore the process and product of languaging as it concerns the learning of the grammatical concept of voice (active, passive, and middle) in French. We examine and analyze the amount and type of languaging produced by a small sample of university students as they struggle to understand the concept of voice. Students who are high languagers learn about the grammatical concept of voice in French with greater depth of understanding than low languagers. We demonstrate that there is a relationship between the quality and quantity of languaging and performance as measured by immediate and delayed posttest stages. These findings suggest that languaging is a key component in the internalization process of second language grammatical concepts. Implications of our research for pedagogy are briefly considered.