How do young English learners' vocabulary, extramural English and attitudes develop over one year?

What is it about?

Extramural English refers to exposure to English outside of the language classroom. Previous studies have not been able to disentangle the impact of extramural English and in-school exposure through instruction. This study makes an important contribution by investigating young learners who have never had English instruction in school. We adopted two-wave longitudinal design to investigate the development of extramural English, vocabulary knowledge and attitudes in primary school learners over a one-year period.

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Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study is one of the first to adopt a longitudinal design to measure young learners' extramural English, English vocabulary development at the level of meaning recall, and attitudes. By investigating learners prior to the start of English instruction, this study is able to disentangle the impact of extramural English from that of instruction. The findings provide important insights into the role of extramural English in vocabulary development and attitudes in two groups of primary school learners over a one-year period.