Salford Corpus
Tasks
A number of tasks were repeated over the course of the project, ranging from 4 – 11 per year. They were administered to each student on a one-to-one basis with a researcher. Results of tasks could then be compared to analyse linguistic progression. In year 4 the students did the same tasks in English for comparison. A Key to all the tasks is given at the end of this page.
The tasks were as follows:
Year 1
These interviews were carried out in December 1989
General chat = discussion with an interviewer
Cartoon descriptions = description and comparison of two non-animated cartoon drawings
Story continuation = a subject is given, orally, the beginning of a story and invents an ending. Pink Panther cartoon retelling: description of an animated cartoon.
Year 2
These interviews were carried out in December 1990
General chat = discussion with an interviewer
Oral translation = oral translation into French of a text delivered orally by an interviewer
Story from a picture = invention of a story given a picture as stimulus
Personal adventure = subjects relate an incident which has occurred in their lives
Cartoon description = description and comparison of two non-animated cartoon drawings
Story continuation = a subject is given, orally, the beginning of a story and invents an ending.
Story recall = subjects have to recall stories containing 4 pieces of information which are presented to them orally by an interviewer (based on a design used in Hulstijn, J. and W. Hulstijn 1984: Grammatical errors as a function of processing constraints and explicit knowledge.’ Language Learning 34: 23-42).
Shadowing March 1991 + 2 retellings (not included in the FLLOC database)
Balablok cartoon retelling alone in booth(TVs) after viewing animated cartoon .TVs stand for temporal variables (speaking rate, number of syllables in a run (speech between pauses), length of pauses), which are indicated in the transcription
Balablok cartoon retelling with interviewer
Chat about the film with interviewer
Year 3
These interviews were carried out in France in September 1991. Tasks were:
General chat
Personal adventure (TVs)
Oral translation
Cartoon description = description and comparison of two non-animated cartoon drawings
Story continuation (TVs)
Story recall test
More brief chat
Balablok cartoon retelling alone in booth (TVs)
Balablok cartoon retelling with interviewer
Chat about the film with interviewer
Year 4
These interviews took place in February 1993
Cartoon retelling: Pink panther (TVs)
Shadowing and retelling (What else?) (not included in the FLLOC database)
Oral Translation of à/de letter
Cartoon Retelling of Balablok in English
Story Recall In English
General chat in English
KEY TO THE TASKS USED IN THE STUDY
chat/general chat = discussion with an interviewer
cartoon descriptions = description and comparison of two non-animated cartoon drawings
story continuation = a subject is given, orally, the beginning of a story and invents an ending.
pink panther cartoon retelling = description of an animated cartoon following viewing
shadowing + retellings 1 and 2 = simultaneous oral imitation of an audio recording, followed by an attempt to retell the content of the heard text, followed by a further attempt to retell the text having read a script of it.
oral translation = oral translation into French of a text delivered orally by an interviewer.
story from a picture = invention of a story given a picture as stimulus.
personal adventure = subjects relate an incident which has occurred in their lives.
story recall = subjects have to recall stories containing 4 pieces of information which are presented to them orally by an interviewer (based on a design used in Hulstijn, J. and W. Hulstijn 1984: 'Grammatical errors as a function of processing constraints and explicit knowledge'. Language Learning 34: 23-43.).
balablok = description of an animated cartoon, following viewing.
Codes
B Balablok
S Story Continuation
Px Pink Panther
A Personal Adventure
L Story Recall
C Chat
R Cartoon description
W Shadowing and retellings 1 & 2
T Oral Translation
Y Story from a Picture (very short)
Further codes are used to indicate the three different files within Balablok and Pink Panther:
- alone in booth x
- with interviewer y
- chat with interviewer z
An ‘eng’ is added to the code if the task is in English